The other week, while walking into the press area to shoot a concert, a little girl pointed at me excitedly and said to her mom “Mommy look it’s a paparazzi!” It’s official, the youth have spoken, anyone with a camera is a paparazzi.

I used to get angry, upset, even bitter when people confused a photojournalist with a paparazzi; however, now i’ve just come to accept the fact,  the two words have become synonymous. It’s not just us…people also incorrectly overgeneralize and call: doctors “quacks”, lawyers “ambulance chasers”, bankers “thieves”, and used car salesman “scum.” So here is some info to give you an idea of what a paparazzi agency really looks like.

World Entertainment News Network: The “World Entertainment News Network” or WENN for short,  sounds so official and awe inspiring. The first time I encountered this paparazzi breed, I was shooting a red carpet at a Kim Kardashian event. There was a woman from WENN standing behind me, shreaking in the most blood curdling horrifying scream “Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiim, Kiiiiiiiiiiiiim!” As if someone were unleashing her into a cage of ravenous bears and the only way to save her life was to get Kim Kardashian to look at her.

Pacific Coast News: We don’t see them around Chicago, after all they are “The Pacific Coast News.” Famous for bringing you 75 % of every Lindsay Lohan & Paris Hilton photo known to man, among anything else happening in California. In fact one time, when Lindsay was moving into a new home in Malibu, her car battery went dead. The first people to run out and jump start her car? Oh yes…paparazzi from “The Pacific Coast News.” Most recently a photographer from “The Pacific Coast News” snapped a shot of an emaciated and seemingly dying Steve Jobs (Apple’s former CEO). Wow that’s classy.

Fame Pictures: They describe themselves as being “known to our American and international clients to be an agency with 100% reliability, honesty, honor, and integrity.” They must mean having integrity, from the standpoint they always send their photos on time if the check is in the mail. Last time I checked they still have paparazzi stalking celeb’s children on a daily basis.

Splash News: The tagline on their site says “The people paparazzi, get paid for your photos.” Here is how they explain themselves: ”The age of the People Paparazzi is here. There are four billion mobile phones in the world today with cameras and everyone has a camera. Splash has led the way in selling the public’s images to websites, magazines, newspapers and TV around the world” (Splashnewsonline.com). Seriously do I even need to do a quick writeup on them?

In conclusion, I own a camera, therefore I am a paparazzi.

I recently shot for a major hotel brand in Chicago, the weekend of Lollapalooza. It’s the largest music festival in the country, so plenty of celebs were in an out of the hotel. One night I was doing my thing in the lobby, working on some shots of the commercial branding products, signage, etc. Suddenly my ears and eyes poked up when the still and silent lobby began to move. From the corner of my eye, I saw two burly men, flanking a woman wearing a white hat and sunglasses. They were walking with the type of urgency that would freak you out. As if someone just lit the wick of a firework and they were getting the hell out of there, so as not to blow their face off.  I didn’t need a DNA test or a side by side photo comparison, it was Lindsay Lohan. It couldn’t be anyone else.

I wasn’t about to book it in front of them, dive on the ground and try to grab some precious shots of her walking through a hotel lobby. I really don’t care THAT much. As if the internet doesn’t have enough photos of her walking around deliriously. So I followed them out the lobby entrance curiously, she jumped into the front passenger side of a black SUV, and just sat there for a few moments. It occurred, she was just kind of gawking at me. Probably thinking “what the hell is this guy doing?” Granted here I am with two huge cameras, i’m standing 10 feet away from her, just watching…taking in this life experience. Honestly…she was probably surprised I wasn’t running up to the window, firing off shots of her through the glass? It’s not my thing, paparazzis are the only people who stoop to that level. She sure wasn’t batting her eyelashes at me because i’m incredibly good looking. It had been a long day…I could have used some hair gel, haha.

For a moment I had this existential epiphany, in which I saw a bigger picture of what was going on. Granted I hadn’t slept in two days, was deliriously tired, and I had a nasty cold so there was a lot of DayQuil in my system. So maybe i’m blowing things out of proportion. But it felt like she was a hamster looking out of its plastic enclosure, towards a world it will never truly get to experience or know freely. Like a prisoner of her own mind, her own celebrity, her own ego. Let’s be honest here, the most interaction she gets with the world is probably the time she spends being chauffeured quickly from my car to the next, or from one place to the other. Do you think she ever goes out into the middle of the street, on a bright summer afternoon, with a soft serve ice cream cone, taking everything in? I don’t know if she does…but that’s how it felt. The car pulled away and I went back inside and back to work. Only 3 minutes had gone by, I swear it seemed like 20. Just another day in my crazy life. It was the time Lindsay Lohan looked at me.