Paul W. Gillespie, Paparazzi to the D-List Stars.
 |
| Kate and family walk City Dock. Photo by Paul W Gillespie © The Capital newspaper |
What do you get when you mix a woman who has eight kids and a TLC TV show, with a photographer who has no scheduled assignments and slow news day at The Capital newspaper? The answer is "Paul W. Gillespie, Paparazzi to the D-List Stars." After a wonderful start to my shift, filled with treats from The Capital Parking Lot Picnic, I figured I should go out and look for some weather art. I have to justify my pay somehow.
He tells me that Kate Gosselin, formerly of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” and now just “Kate Plus 8” fame is eating lunch at Buddy's Crabs & Ribs downtown. I immediately get that sinking feeling in my stomach. I am not a hide-in-the-bushes, celebrity-stalking paparazzi. If I were, I would be making a lot more money, but that is beside the point.
I have seen TMZ and the other Hollywood shows, and the last thing I want to do is chase some reality show "celebrity" around town when she doesn't want to be photographed. Sure, I take pictures all the time of people who don't want to be photographed, but it is usually for a better reason than being able to have eight kids and get a TV show about it. But hey, I have time to kill and I am being paid, so I may as well go downtown and look for her. Besides what are the odds of me finding her?
They were actually pretty good. After having trouble finding parking, I finally break down and put the car in the parking garage, I figure she would be long gone. I go to Buddy's and, rather than wait outside hoping she would come out, I go in and ask the hostess if Kate Gosselin was eating there. She tells me I missed her by half an hour. As I am leaving, a server tells me they headed towards City Dock.
At City Dock, I am looking around, and across the water, I see a woman sitting on the ground next to a large camera bag. I figure she has to have something to do with the "circus" and go over to ask her. "Are you filming something around here," I ask. "Yes," she answered. “Is it Kate?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Are you from TLC filming her show?" I ask. “Yes," she says again. I ask if Kate’s coming back, and she said Kate was and she was out on a boat at the time. When I tell her I’m from the local paper and would hang around, she says, "I don't think Kate would want you right around here when she gets back."
“Oh really,” I think, but I say I’d hang back, not wanting to get in anyone's way, that I just needed a few shots for the paper. She really couldn't do anything about me there since it was a public place, but why push the issue if I could get what I needed without causing a fuss.
So I am sitting there near the Alex Haley Memorial. People keep coming up and asking what I am waiting to film, since I had the big video camera and my still gear. Kate Gosselin, I reply, and every one of them says, “Oh yeah. We saw her walking around.” “Great, everyone and their mothers have seen her, and I will not be able to find her,” I think.
About 45 minutes pass, and I am having a pleasant afternoon soaking in the sun at City Dock when a large sailboat approaches. I figure it has to be her; I see a woman wearing a purple top, and I had been told that was what she was wearing. Now the real dilemma starts: Do I shoot stills or video? I will write another post on this topic, but I decide to go where our newspaper’s bread is buttered and shoot stills.
If I only had two more arms and hands and at least one more good eye. I am juggling between still camera and video camera, shooting shaky video and adequate stills, worried that she is not looking my way enough. I am also worried that I will not have enough good video to put something decent together.
She films a few more minutes of her show dockside and then takes off her microphone and start to talk with her family. At this point, her security guy comes up to me and asks who I was with. I answered the local paper, and he says ok and walked away. I am staying plenty far away, and he doesn’t seem to have a problem.
They make their way up Main Street, and I think I am done. I actually lose view of them for a while. So I am walking up Main Street and I see an older gentleman standing in front of a store. As I walk past, a photo of Kate - that fellow photographer Laura-Chase McGhee printed for me - fell out of my pocket right in front of the guy. I bend down to pick it up and say, "Oh, that is my ‘Stalkerazzi’ photo of Kate so I would recognize her" and I laugh. He asks whom I work for, and I say him The Capital, which he recognizes because he’s local.
He then tells me she was in the store The Black Dog. I asked if he knows her, and he says, “Yes, my wife is her aunt.” I feel a little weird about the "Stalkerazzi" comment, but he’s cool. He asks when it would be in the paper, and I tell him probably tomorrow. I then ask if he would give me the names of his family members, which he declines nicely.
A few minutes later they all came out, and I get another bad photo of her walking away from me. They head back down Main Street, probably to the big limo I see waiting in front of Armadillo’s. I crossed the street, staying far away, hoping to get just a little more good video. They cross the street right at the intersection where I’m filming, walking right towards me, when I hear her make some snarky remark to the guard, and he comes over to me. I say I was done anyway and to have a nice day.
No sir, I don't think I like being "Paul W. Gillespie, Paparazzi to the D-List Stars." If I have to put up with this kind of hassle, I want the "Stalkerazzi" money, at least.
Be sure to check out my video of Kate here on The Capital Online.
And also run out and buy a paper, preferably The Capital, because we can not cover the D-List stars if we don't have readers of the dead tree sort, they pay most of our bills.
Comments