Informants, License Plate Numbers and Techniques

Aug. 23, 2005 — -- Is Britney Spears expecting a boy or a girl? Is Jennifer Aniston looking for a new love? Or will Paris Hilton be the one to steal the spotlight this month in the tabloids?

Paparazzi photographers are anxiously hoping to be the first to tell these kinds of details to readers of celebrity magazines like Us Weekly, In Touch Weekly, People and the new American version of OK! magazine.

Working on freeways, in airports and other celebrity-rich locales, these aggressive photographers are tireless entrepreneurs who hound celebrities in the hopes of snapping an image that will translate into a financial windfall.

"They're always on. I don't think I've ever been out to dinner with one of those photographers that the phone didn't go off, the pager didn't go off … and they will often leave you in the middle of dinner just because they've got a tip," said veteran photographer Peter Howe, whose new book "Paparazzi" traces the history of the practice.

"If these guys were doing mainstream journalism with the enthusiasm, fervor and resources that they apply to celebrity journalism they would have solved Watergate in a weekend. Nixon would have been out of there before you knew what was happening," said Howe.

Stars and gossip have gone hand in hand since Hollywood emerged.

But the current batch of A-list names is being followed by an increasingly competitive batch of photographers. Howe estimates there are now 200 photographers working in Hollywood, up from about 50 a decade ago. The extra lenses were likely lured in by the huge potential for profits -- a basic celebrity picture sells for $1,000 and Howe notes a rare image of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie went for as much as $500,000 -- as magazines compete for noteworthy images from the photo agencies.

Those famous smiles are also shipped off to fans and curious readers in places as far flung as Croatia and Singapore. "It used to be basically the English-speaking world, Britain and Australia were big markets for this, but now it just seems to be going everywhere," said Howe.