Paparazzi

Paparazzi are independent photographers who take pictures of high-profile people, such as actors, musicians, athletes, politicians, and other celebrities who go about their daily life routines.

Paparazzi are known for their relentless pursuit of celebrities, often using long lenses and speedlite flashes or even following them in vehicles to capture personal, unflattering, or private moments.

Paparazzi tend to be independent contractors, unaffiliated with mainstream media organizations, who track high-profile people and take pictures of them opportunistically.

[1] Some journalists have described the behavior of paparazzi as stalking,[2][3][4] and anti-stalking laws in many countries address the issue by seeking to reduce harassment of public figures and celebrities, especially when they are with their children.

[5] Some public figures and celebrities, such as Adele, Prince Harry, and Kristen Stewart, have expressed concern at the extent to which paparazzi go to invade their personal space.

[9] This happens because constant exposure to and coverage of these figures [10] leads people to treat celebrities like they are their social intimates, whom they admire, gossip about, or copy habits from.

It is also a common practice for celebrities to willingly invite paparazzi to take photographs of them, the main reason being to maintain or increase their relevance and exposure.

The invention of quicker and more portable cameras facilitated the process of capturing unauthorized celebrity photographs and publishing them in illustrated newspapers, which started appearing in the 1890s.

[21] A news photographer named Paparazzo (played by Walter Santesso in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita directed by Federico Fellini) is the eponym of the word paparazzi.

[22] In his book The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Robert Hendrickson writes that Fellini named the "hyperactive photographer ... after Italian slang for 'mosquito'".

For example, in the Abruzzo dialect spoken by Ennio Flaiano, co-scriptwriter of La Dolce Vita, the term paparazzo refers to the local clam, Venerupis decussata, and is also used as a metaphor for the shutter of a camera lens.

Further, in an interview with Fellini's screenwriter Flaiano, he said the name came from the book Sulla riva dello Jonio (1957),[25] a translation by Italian poet Margherita Guidacci of By the Ionian Sea,[26] a 1901 travel narrative in southern Italy by Victorian writer George Gissing.

[30] A transliteration of paparazzi is used in several languages that do not use the Latin alphabet, including Japanese (パパラッチ), Korean (파파라치), Ukrainian (папарацці), Russian (папарацци), Bulgarian (папараци), Thai (ปาปารัสซี) and Hebrew (פפראצי).

For example, in July 2012, when Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr leaned over to buckle her son into a car seat, her thong underwear peeked over her jeans to create a whale tail.

[47] In 1999, the Oriental Daily News of Hong Kong was found guilty of "scandalizing the court", an extremely rare charge where the judiciary find that the newspaper's conduct undermines confidence in the administration of justice.

[48] The charge was brought after the newspaper had published abusive articles challenging the judiciary's integrity and accusing it of bias in a lawsuit the paper had instigated over a photo of a pregnant Faye Wong.

"[50] Paparazzi author Peter Howe told Time that "celebrities need a higher level of exposure than the rest of us so it is a two-way street.

In 2006, Former Brazilian Model Daniella Cicarelli went through a scandal when a paparazzi caught video footage of her having sex with her boyfriend on a beach in Spain, which was posted on YouTube.