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Paparazzi at the Tribeca Film Festival

Paparazzi is a plural term (paparazzo being the singular form^[1][2]) for photographers who take candid photographs of celebrities, usually by relentlessly shadowing them in their public and private activities. Celebrities claiming to have been hounded by such photographers often use "paparazzi" and even "stalkarazzi" as a pejorative term^[3] while news agencies commonly use the word in a broader sense to describe all photographers who take pictures of notable people.^[4]

The word paparazzi was popularized after the Federico Fellini 1960 film La dolce vita. One of the characters in the film is a news photographer named Paparazzo (played by Walter Santesso). In his book Word and Phrase Origins, author Robert Hendrickson writes that Fellini took the name paparazzi from an Italian dialect word for a particularly noisy, buzzing mosquito. In his school days, Fellini remembered a boy who was nicknamed "Paparazzo" (Mosquito), because of his fast talking and constant movements, a name Fellini later applied to the fictional character in La dolce vita.

Photographers at a protest.

Technological developments in cameras (such as higher quality telephoto lenses and high speed films) enable paparazzi to shoot their subjects from afar, and often unseen. Miniaturization allows tiny palm-sized cameras that can effectively engage in secret photography. Further, digital cameras and transmission methods allow for rapid distribution of the pictures. Paparazi are not necessarily dependent upon technologically advanced vehicles. Most use transportation such as a car or a bicycle to take them from point A to B. Some even go about using only their legs.

Due to the reputation of paparazzi as an annoyance, some states and countries (particularly within Europe) restrict their activities by passing laws and curfews, and by staging events in which paparazzi are specifically allowed to take photographs. In Germany and France, photographers need the permission of the people in their photographs (see model release).

The presence of paparazzi is not always seen as annoying; the arranger of an event may, in order to make the guests feel important, hire a number of actors who pretend they are paparazzi (so-called faux-paparazzi). This was, for instance, seen at extravagant events during the dot-com boom.^{[citation needed]}

Paparazzi sell their work to dozens of magazines and newspapers that publish such photos for their readers and subscribers, and many paparazzi feel that they are helping celebrities and public figures in general by increasing their visibility. Photographers often earn large sums of money for a valuable picture.

Some observers blamed paparazzi for the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, who were killed in 1997 in a high-speed car accident in Paris, France, while being pursued by paparazzi. Although several paparazzi were briefly taken into custody, no one was ever convicted, and the official French investigation of the crash concluded that they had not caused the accident, and in fact the cause of the accident was the drugged and drunken driver Henri Paul.^[5]

In 1999, the Oriental Daily News of Hong Kong was found guilty of "scandalizing the court", an extremely rare criminal charge that the newspaper's conduct would undermine confidence in the administration of justice.^[6] The charge was brought after the newspaper had published abusive articles challenging the judiciary's integrity and accusing it of bias in a lawsuit the paper had instigated over a photo of a pregnant Faye Wong. The paper had also arranged for a "puppy team" to track a judge for 72 hours, to provide the judge with first-hand experience with what paparazzi do.^[7]

Time Magazine (Style & Design) in 2005 ran a story entitled "Shooting Stars", in which Mel Bouzad, one of the top paparazzi in Los Angeles at the time, claimed to have made US$150,000 for a picture of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in Georgia after their breakup. "If I get [a picture of] Britney and her baby," Bouzad claimed, "I'll be able to buy a house in those hills (above Sunset Boulevard)."^[8] Paparazzi author Peter Howe told Time that "celebrities need a higher level of exposure than the rest of us so it is a two-way street. The celebrities manipulate."

Some have argued that it is the paparazzi who "make" people celebrities, but very often, the celebrities appear to hate and fear the paparazzi. Some paparazzi have responded that if a celebrity, who sought out fame in becoming a celebrity, wants privacy, they shouldn't leave their homes, which is a fallacy since celebrities not necessarily seek fame, they rather love acting or just do it for the money.^{[citation needed]}

The E! network program Celebrities Uncensored used often-confrontational footage of celebrities made by paparazzi.

Passers-by or witnesses to news events who take images later used for broadcast have been dubbed snaparazzi. Often a newsworthy event is captured on video or digital picture using a mobile phone. The 7 July 2005 London bombings provided a large number of cases where stills from the bombed underground trains were made available online almost immediately after the events. Another example would be of the Virginia Tech massacre, where several students used their camera phones to capture footage of the shootings.