Stalking (was Paparazzi &Princess DI)

[Kari Eloranta <kve@dopey.hut.fi>]

Someone here tries to explain us away from the paparazzi business:
that's all autofocus. They cannot do a thing, not even use manual focus.
Leica is clean.

Amazing naivete.

Ever seen the film La Dolce Vita? The two hounds: a reporter and the 
photographer. Men without morals, stalking for scandalous pictures.
Actors, the rich, the aristocrats, whoever known, at their lowest
moments. Fellini got interested in this after having seen the work of
Tazio Secciaroli, a roman photographer. A stalker of these lives.
Photography in the best Leica tradition, formally: quiet, unobtrusive,
stealthy shots of people. Yet a piece is missing. A moral stand.

What these guys do now is the same with bigger tools and with more nerve.
It is utterly immaterial what exact brand they use. And they do what
most of us end up doing at times - taking pictures without really knowing
whether the subject is consenting. This can provoke a rational reaction
(e.g. a high speed escape) or irrational (beating up the shooter and
ending up paying the fines). But the photographer is ultimately
responsible for both.

It all boils down to moral choice. The shooter's, the editor's and
the magazine buyer's. Reducing this matter to either techical matters
a'la autofocus or to just money is to trivialize it.

The man without a map, Secciaroli, now 72, comments sheepishly:
"Things have gotten a bit too far". 



Kari Eloranta