INTRODUCTION TO GUP #14 – PAPARAZZI

INTRODUCTION TO GUP #14 - PAPARAZZI


CREDITS

GUP Author

ROY KAHMANN


Film director Federico Fellini sat next to a fast-talking boy at school. They called him ‘paparazzo’, taken from the Italian word for mosquito; irritating and intrusive by nature. Later in Fellini’s film ‘La Dolce Vita’, he gave the same name to the character of a pushy press photographer who specialized in wheedling this way into high society circuits. And so the term ‘paparazzi’ was born.

A good number of the images flooding our visual world today come courtesy of the paparazzi. Magazines, newspapers, websites and TV programs are all hot on the tails of celebrities. One can’t help but notice the legacy of the paparazzi in full swing today. Nor the celebrities themselves for that matter. Exposure is business, and for the Paris Hiltons of this world it doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative.

In this Paparazzi issue you will see work from established paparazzi, nevertheless in a different context. We were curious if this photography is only vulgar and superficial or does it have the capacity to uplift itself and become photojournalism in its purest form or even art? Judge for yourself.