Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/03/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> I am talking about, for > example, the people who surrounded Diana in the street one time when she > was walking to her car. She became totally disoriented to the point where > she got lost, and then broke down sobbing. And to what end ? Diana was a known depressive whom had a habit of fits, crying jags and other unhappy moments. Is it a farfetched idea to think that what you saw was a moment of Diana displaying her own mental unease, rather than a rational response to what was happening around her? As a point to consider rather than as an excuse, I wonder if a newspaper staff photographer was required to hide in bushes to get photos of David Koresh, would that be OK by you? Can you have it both ways? News is not only what's 'newsworthy' in the classic sense (as a good look at current media, in any form, surely will convince); news _now is what sells to a hungry public. It's not a responsible thing to criticize when the only explanation you've seen has been fed to you by a machine anxious to absolve itself and heavily biased against its own minions. The situations I've heard cited are all extreme; analogous to using Michael Milken as the norm of stock/bond trading or Marcia Clark as the norm among prosecutors. I can't see any good reason to believe that the general image of paparazzi is anymore true than the publics general refusal to make a distinction between anyone with a camera and a 'real' paparazzi, or the idea that a famous photojournalist surely makes a ton o' yearly bucks. >I am slamming the Paparazzi. **Remember, the thread was about who caused >Princess Diana's death**. And I made a distinction between pjs and the >photographers who were chasing her. Exactly why I continue to argue this with you. Your expressed point of view is in line with a cadre of belligerant jerks who would very much like to wreak havoc on photographers, responsible or not, innocent or not. Hypocrites like the staff of Hard Copy, have no trouble trouncing the ethics of whomever, while at the same time being wholly dependant on the criticized for their continued existance. This entire play is a charade designed to place a fall guy to protect the people who order the photos and the public who line up to eat it, from their own responsibility in how news is gathered. Again, you will almost never get permission from a celebrity to take a photo if you ask, which would be how most would like to see it done. "He said no" won't fly with your editor or the public who both demand the photo. We all have to live and work in reality and the reality is not so nice as to allow assigned photographers to make a living while accepting everyones whim/wishes. In order to be paid they must come back with the photos! The celebrities also fully understand that. You cannot state an opinion in line with the most reactive points of a lynchmob and pretend to not be part of that mob. I take strong exception to the idea that photographers have caused Diana's death because, besides being not true, it incites vicious rabble to action against anyone they percieve as 'paparazzi'. It is especially regretable to hear it from people who participate in photography because it is either amazingly nieve, or just plain stupid, to add vocal fervor that serves only to incite frustration, and then violence, against yourself and/or others like you. Honestly, it's getting pretty easy to differentiate between people who are active in photographing in public and those who just aren't. Why not go out on the street and photograph a few un-asked strangers tomorrow and then come back and argue your case. Danny Gonzalez