'Some of the guys will stop at nothing today'

Published on Thursday 11 January 2007 01:20

KATE MIDDLETON had a face like thunder. As she stepped out of her front door she was engulfed by a mass that resembled a huge living beast, whirring, clicking and flashing. It moved with her as she strode to her car. "Happy birthday, Kate," part of the creature called out.

Most of us there had seen that look before, and in similar circumstances. There was an eerie familiarity about that mix of apprehension, defiance and resolve.

Diana looked that way often when the photographers crowded in more than she could bear.

Now history is repeating itself. The beautiful young woman many expect to be the next Princess of Wales now faces an ordeal by camera. One woman photographer thrust her lens within inches of Kate's face as she stoically walked on. It was aggressive and unnecessary - what kind of picture did she expect almost touching her nose?

This is happening even as the foundations are being laid for an inquest that might possibly decide Diana died because she was forced into a high-speed chase by the paparazzi. Who knows what agonies Prince William, his brother, his father and probably his grandmother, too, endure when Middleton finds herself in circumstances not that different. Palace lawyers are trying to find a way to protect her. They will probably fail.

In an age where celebrities (including proto-royals) are consumer items, the paparazzi have become unstoppable. The Royal Family may take heart from News International's pledge not to use paparazzi pictures but, when the world-beating, newspaper-selling photograph drops, will the editors at the Sun and the News of The World decide not to publish?

I went to Middleton's home to see the predatory photographers. Indeed, they are becoming the story now. Two German television crews were there to report on Kate and the paps, as was the American network CBS. A handful of daily newspapers, including the Times and the Evening Standard, were also there, with most of the big news agencies. There were, too, a number of individuals described to me by a highly-respected photographer as "pond life".

What did he mean? In the early 1970s, I, too, worked as a paparazzo, supplementing my income as a freelance writer. I thought I knew the game. Roman Polanski leapt on my back one night when I photographed him with a statuesque actress. As I tried to shake him loose, she hit me on the head with her handbag.

Marianne Faithfull once grabbed my camera and threatened to smash it. Mick Jagger, then her boyfriend, gave it back to me later. When I was seized by a coughing fit trying to get a picture of Aristotle Onassis and his bride, Jackie Kennedy, she tried to run off, laughing. He held her back. "Let the man do his work," he growled.

I got my picture. I thought I knew the business. But, my photographer friend explained, the game has changed.

Did I know that a favourite trick of some of these so-called paparazzi was to get in close to Middleton and hiss: "Think you could be a princess? You're a f****** waste of space. Smile you f****** bitch!"?

What did I think the paparazzi said to Prince Harry the night he jumped out of his car and threw a punch? "It certainly wasn't 'Sleep tight, your Royal Highness'." These tactics are used by teams of two. One tries to get a reaction, the other photographs it. Their strategy of provocation comes straight from the football field, or the meanest boxing ring. The main exponents are individuals with no journalistic background who equip themselves with automatic cameras, perhaps a motorcycle, and a list of phone numbers for the many agencies that buy celebrity pictures. If you can goad a prince into throwing a punch, the snap could be worth thousands.

Professional news photographers avoid such folk and usually ensure they operate on the margins. But the bully-boy snappers are our own creation. Without newspapers and magazines to buy the pictures for celebrity-hungry readers, they would not exist. The question raised by the Middleton affair is not whether she should be photographed but where the acceptable limits lie.

Jason Fraser, a highly accomplished news photographer who specialises in celebrities, has become a celebrity himself with an income to match. His pictures of Victoria Beckham, with her newborn son, Romeo, appeared in most national papers and earned him, over two days, close to 80,000.

Ray Field, another skilled cameraman, took the first pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie together on a beach in Kenya in 2005. He grossed more than 100,000 in the first week and is still earning from repeat publication.

The agency that syndicated the photographs, Big Pictures, has a website, mrpaparazzi.com, which urges members of the public to send in pictures of stars and, indeed, anyone famous. The website features candid snaps that have earned big money. Gwyneth Paltrow on a surfboard? That netted 8,000 for someone. Gordon Ramsay with a bottle of beer and a blonde? That'll get you 5,000.

"Earn cash from pictures now!" Mr Paparazzi extols. With most of the population carrying a camera in their mobile phone, there can be no hiding place for most famous faces. Alan Williams, who runs Big Pictures, had two photographers at Middleton's house yesterday. One videoed the scene with the photographers and Williams watched it later. He says: "Frankly, some of that was over the top. One person there had the camera literally in her face. I would never condone that kind of behaviour. Our guys are told - don't antagonise. But you do get loose cannons. They tend not to last. The worst will get a tap on the shoulder. They get railroaded out."

Big Pictures employs around 25 staff photographers, most involved in following or staking out celebrities. Other agencies, such as Matrix and Exposure, operate along similar lines. London has become the world capital of the rich and famous. Is it surprising it is also the centre for the paparazzi?

Dave Mepham, an affable man, clad in a bright red jacket and near-fluorescent blue trainers, was outside Middleton's house before dawn yesterday. He was once a used car salesman. Then he broke his neck in a crash and spent months recuperating.

"I bought a pocket camera and just decided to be a photographer," he said. "I started following stars and staking out their homes. I don't get into confrontations and always shoot it long (take pictures from a distance). You know Chris Martin of Coldplay? Gwyneth Paltrow's husband? He's a brilliant guy. He came over to me and said, 'Look, take a couple of pictures then call it a day, right?' So I did. Everyone was happy.But Jude Law - forget it. That guy is Mr Nasty."

Mepham was on the point of telling me about his row with Law, when Middleton came out. "We're on!" he shouted and joined the scrum. I noticed he shot his pictures from a non-oppressive distance. But that is my judgment, not hers.

Perhaps she finds the whole business of being photographed painful. I remember seeing Diana watch Charles play polo once, in the early days. A group of photographers snapped at her incessantly from 20 yards or more. She couldn't take it. She broke down and Lord Romsey, who was on hand, bundled her into Charles's Aston Martin.

She became tougher later. But when she tried to bow out of the limelight in 1993, she spoke of "overwhelming attention" that was "hard to bear".

Diana must have known the attention from the cameras was a response to the vast love that was felt for her in the world. This is the paradox at the heart of the paparazzi question. The pictures that are made by acts some believe to be cruel have value only because the victim is the object of interest and affection.

Mepham told me his pictures of Chantelle Houghton and her boyfriend recently made 13,000. Why? Because the nation had taken this dizzy blonde to its heart. Middleton might argue that, unlike Houghton, she has never sought fame. It doesn't matter. The people want to love her for other reasons. Despised people rarely make good paparazzi subjects.

Many celebrities thrive on the attentions of the camera packs. This was how it started when, nearly half a century ago, Federico Fellini used the name Paparazzo for the photographer played by Walter Santesso in La Dolce Vita. In the beginning, all the best paparazzi were Italian, even in London. Ray Bellisario is the father of the British pap corps. He is 70 now and living quietly in west London. But Bellisario pioneered candid celebrity photography here and his story could provide a lesson for the Royal Family.

In 1964 he broke new ground when he photographed Lord Snowdon and his then wife, Princess Margaret, sunbathing by a lake near Windsor Castle. The pictures of Margaret in a swimsuit caused a sensation. Bellisario took many more bestselling pictures. Newspaper editors and readers loved him. The Royals despised him. Snowdon described him, in an interview last September, as "that really wicked man".

But, he explained to me, they only had themselves to blame. As a press photographer in the 1950s, he had secured accreditation to accompany the Queen on a tour of India. But at a reception at Buckingham Palace, the press secretary, Commander Richard Colville, a crusty naval officer, took against him.

"I think he thought I was a nasty foreigner," Bellisario recalled. Colville cancelled his accreditation and he had to let down the magazines who had hired him for the India trip.

"I decided if I couldn't work with them, I'd work without them," he said. So he began a one-man crusade to get the pictures the Royal Family didn't want seen. There were shots of Princess Alexandra and Angus Ogilvy, more of Margaret and Snowdon, then Charles and Diana.

"The Queen's detective once told me they had even looked at deporting me," he said. "I think they would have, too, if they hadn't discovered I'd got a British passport."

But Bellisario believes a thuggish element has entered the paparazzi ranks. "Some of the guys will stop at nothing today," he said. "I always operated within the law. Never trespassed, knew my rights."

After Middleton drove away and the pack began to disperse, I approached one of the individuals who had pressed her hardest. He turned when I introduced myself, stared at me menacingly and drew a finger across his lips. It was a gesture from the underworld. My photographer friend was right. The game has indeed changed.