The Role of the Paparazzi in Celebrity Weddings

Paparazzi have become a stable part of today's media. If a celebrity's aiming to have a private Santa Barbara wedding, you can be sure there will be paparazzi there waiting. At every destination wedding photographers will have their cameras out and ready to get a shot of the happy couple. While the nature of invading ones privacy would come as morally questionable to most of the public, members of the paparazzi are forever looking for photographs that could land those millions of dollars. When this kind of money is in question, issues of morality and ethics tend to take a backseat.

While it could be expected that tabloid journalists would feel a pang of guilt for their behavior, most see themselves as fulfilling a desire from the public. This can hardly be denied, as the popularity of magazines that sell photographs of celebrities without make-up, out with their family or, indeed, getting married is staggering. These images allow readers to move past the heavily made-up, airbrushed and generally "fake" celebrities, and see that those we idolize as somehow above us are human after all.

The invention of the internet seems to have increased the popularity of tabloid journalism. While newspapers are slowly suffering an increasingly bleak loss in sales, many reporters of substantial news stories have been put out of work. For those who provide celebrity gossip and photos, however, there remains plenty of work available, and even respected newspapers have tabloid journalism at the forefront of their websites. The question of why this is can be answered easily: The lives of celebrities attract greater numbers of readers.

Consider the big weddings in recent times such as Brad and Angelina, Tom and Kate, Jennifer and Ben. The bride and groom at each of these weddings took extreme care to control the media presence at these events. In fact, these celebrities saw it fit to take control of the way their wedding is portrayed, agreeing to only certain reporters having access to their wedding, and having these reporters agree to a set version of events to take back to the news desk.

This control of the media has become necessary due to the pressure celebrities feel to provide information to their fans. Each of the three couples mentioned above also took it upon themselves to release a few pre-approved photos of their weddings to the media, in order to placate their need for images of the event, and to lessen the value of paparazzi images that may have been taken.

The nature of the paparazzi today has become unnecessarily invasive. The deeper issue that needs to be considered here, however, is why there is the desire of "normal" individuals to peer into the private lives of others. As long as this need is in place, the paparazzi will always have an audience of paying customers. So long as the money is there, someone will be willing to go into uncertain ethical territory, in order to get the massive payday on offer.

Connor R. Sullivan and his wife attended a wedding with destination wedding photographers on hand to take candid shots of the guests. Connor's niece will have a Santa Barbara wedding next spring.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Connor_R_Sullivan