The Paparazzi Are Working Through the Fires
At first glance, the photo set seemed to capture a kind of universal truth that celebrities — even those staring down historic Hollywood wildfire destruction — are, indeed, just like us. In images featured by “Page Six” and TMZ this week, a “worried” looking Ben Affleck was shown “evacuating” his recently bought $20.5 million Pacific Palisades home as he “raced” to the nearby residence of ex-wife Jennifer Garner (who had apparently not yet evacuated) to reunite with the children they share, Violet, 19; Seraphina, 16; and Samuel, 12.
To those familiar with the ins and outs of the celebrity-industrial complex, however, the shots of Affleck behind the wheel of a black sedan navigating charred Palisades canyons by night with “the emotion of the devastating fire written all over his face” registered a secondary reality. That is, despite significant risks of third-degree burns and smoke inhalation, falling trees and wind-whipped power lines, paparazzi still roam the city’s most exclusive enclaves hunting celebrity quarries.
Vulture reached out to paparazzi agency photojournalist-proprietors Randy Bauer, owner of the Bauer-Griffin photo agency, and Giles Harrison, founder of London Entertainment Group, to ask: What could possibly possess these ultra-competitive, stop-at-nothing, take-no-prisoners shooters to venture out amid Los Angeles’s most devastating natural disaster in pursuit of celeb photos? They offer two opposing perspectives on the situation. One of them understands exactly why paps end up in the line of fire. The other calls them “fucking idiots.”
‘You’re Going to Go Where the Story Is’
Within the paparazzi and the celebrity-photography industry, you aren’t dictated by the circumstances: Oh, it’s a fire. Oh, it’s an earthquake. Oh, it’s whatever. You’re going to go where the story is. And for us, the story is celebrity. If they happen to be caught up in a news story, you go.
Now, the greater backdrop is people in general in peril. Their houses are burning down. They’re evacuated. But we know Ben. We know Jennifer Garner. There are all these people that live off Amalfi and Sunset Boulevard, kind of the epicenter of celebrity living in Pacific Palisades. We know that celebrities live in certain neighborhoods, but we don’t really know whose homes are burning down and where the fire is in direct proximity to their particular house. So we’re kind of just being in the neighborhood, learning as we go. Some of our guys were in Santa Monica yesterday because there is an intermediate staging point and it’s a safe area. To be honest, there’s no strategy. We don’t know. We end up just going to the hotbeds, driving by Ben’s home, Jennifer Garner’s home, and kind of feeling it out.
The shooters don’t get paid more for putting themselves in harm’s way or going into a burn zone that is zero percent contained. It doesn’t matter if you’re hanging off a rope from a helicopter in the middle of a wildfire. The pricing of the photo is not correlated to the risk. It’s correlated to the image of the celebrity and what they’re doing. It’s like war photography — they don’t get paid any differently whether they’re in a hot zone. That’s the nature of the job.
For lack of a better term, it’s a shitshow. We’re doing some pictures of what we call general views of the fire in the neighborhood to help with the story. This is a national, international story; it’s not just a local L.A. story. The celebrity aspect, a lot of it is just fluke. It’s random sightings and luck. There’s definitely interest in a celebrity in front of their burned-down $10 million mansion with tears in their eyes. There might be a better market for a photo like that because it’s very dramatic. But the chances of that happening are slim. That’s probably not going to happen and you’re not going to get a sympathy factor. Oh, poor Ben Affleck. There’s not going to be a whole lot of sympathy for these rich people. —Randy Bauer, Bauer-Griffin
‘These Idiots Want to Make Money’
Those guys going into Pacific Palisades Tuesday night are fucking idiots. I took some photos yesterday, but I’m not taking them in the fire zone. I went to the Santa Monica steps and shot across the canyon. What these guys are doing, it’s a bit — I hate to denigrate what I do for a living, but it’s kind of ghoulish. Because they’re living on the fact that the news story of the moment obviously is going to be celebrity houses that got torched. Look at the Daily Mail — they’re sending drones up over people’s houses. The ones of Ben Affleck driving around, supposedly looking for his children are bullshit. He was probably going over to Jennifer Garner’s house and I’m sure somebody just happened to see him drive by or whatever and got the frames.
Anybody who’s risking life and limb to get a paparazzi shot in this situation, there’s something wrong with them. I know what the strategy is. They want photos of celebs picking up the pieces, somebody returning to the ruins of their house and showing the destruction the celebrities are facing, which, yeah, in and of itself is a news story. But I ain’t risking my life for it.
Is the payday worth the risk? No. It’s a news story and there’s no re-sellable value to the photos that’s not associated with the fires. Because it’s a tragedy, nobody’s going to keep reposting this. There’s no evergreen value. I am not going near anybody’s house that is on fire to either get a street shot or send up a drone or some nonsense like that. Why? You want to get a Pulitzer? These idiots want to make money. It’s not worth it, but they’ll do it. Some tabloid, some outlet wants the shot. But I’ve seen drone footage of the rubble. Apocafuckinglyptic: That’s the best way to describe this. —Giles Harrison, London Entertainment Group
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