Become a Paparazzi
A Digital Photography Career

Want to become a paparazzi? If you love photography and have a passion for celebrity gossip, this could be the right career for you. It's competitive so you have to be up on your game, but if you have what it takes and get great exclusive pictures you could have a lucritive digital photogtraphy career.

We live in a celebrity obsessed culture. We all know it. Just look at the magazines that grace the shelves of your local grocery store checkout line. People want to know what the stars are doing. The magazines that keep us informed about the latest exploits of our favorite celebrities need pictures. They need candid pictures that no one else has and they'll pay a lot of money for exclusive pictures. That's what a paparazzi tries to get.

Research celebrity magazines and see what types of pictures they tend to print. If you want to enter this profession you probably already do this. Make a list of magazines that use paparazzi photos so you know who you can submit to in the future. Find out the editor's name and contact information.

Gear is important in this profession. If you don't already have the right gear, you're going to have to spend a lot of money to get it.

You need a good quality DSLR camera. If you don't know what a DSLR is find out here. Once you have the right camera read the manual and learn how to work it thoroughly.

You'll also need a standard lens, zoom lens and super zoom lens. Most of the time you'll have to get excellent pictures from a distance and that's all about zoom. You'll also need a high quality off camera flash (flash gun) and battery pack. You'll have to take tons of pictures at once so make sure you have lots of extra memory too.

Location is everything. If you want to become a paparazzi you have to live where the stars are. This usually means New York or Los Angelos.

Once you've moved to the right location, you need to find out where the stars hang out. You have to have your ear to the ground to know where to go to get the best candid shots of the big celebrity of the moment.

Many big time paparazzi work with informants who let them know where a celebrity is going to be during the course of the day. These informants may be people who work for the celebrity or people who work in a business the celebrity frequents. Making friends with people who work at these businesses may help you get valuable information. You may have to pay people for insider information.

Nerves are diffintely required to become a paparazzi. We've all seen the images of the crush of people trying to get close to a star. We've all heard stories of paparazzi getting punched by a body guard. This is a competitive and even physical profession. If you want to become a paparazzi you'll need to be willing to take some risks. You'll also need to be able to weigh whether those risks are really worth it.

Payment can be good if you're lucky enough to get the picture that everyone wants, but that's a hard picture to get. Payment for photos can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. Photos are carefully checked by magazines to make sure they're real. It may take a few months to get paid because most magazines only pay upon publication. The work can be unpredictable so it's best to have some type of back-up work.