Celebrity shooting isn’t one of my favourite photographic pursuits. For the most part it’s a great big slice of ‘much ado about nothing’.The long wait to get a decent vantage point, the predictable revising of the ETA past the scheduled arrival time, the frenzied fan reaction to the stars, a couple minutes (sometimes a couple seconds) of trying to corral the celebrity’s fractured attention. Then the star bugs out, you’re left with two hours of your life you’ll never get back, and all you have to show for it are some very basic flash-on-camera shots notable mostly for the recognition quotient of their subject. I believe they call this a star’s Q Score.So Friday night it’s Hilary Duff I'm shooting, who has a very big Q rating and is appearing at a fundraising dinner for one of her favourite charities – children’s nutritional charity Blessings in a Backpack – at Ultra, an establishment previously known as the Ultra Supper Club, but probably more recognizable to a certain vintage of Toronto party-goers as the former Bamboo Club.I’m there to shoot her arrival on the red carpet - which is actually looking more like a concrete sidewalk carpet – but never mind, less likelihood of her tripping.Everything seems promising as we count down to the arrival. There are several dozen fans, but the only other media are a reporter and cameraperson from Fashion Television, a CTV videographer, and another photographer from Canada Press.I’m positioned right beside the FTV crew, as I know celebrities are attracted first and foremost to television cameras at these things.We’re right in front, dead centre.The reporter – Mary Kitchen – agrees to position herself so she’s not blocking my shot while the interview is going on (thank-you Mary), and the camera person is okay with my flash going off while he’s filming (thank-you friendly camera guy who’s name I forgot to get).I’m starting to think this might just be one of those shoots where you really do get enough time for some interaction with the celeb, as opposed to making due with whatever you’re handed.And then I turn around, and over by the street where she will be pulling up to the curb, I see the Paparazzi.How to recognise the paparazzi at occasions like this?Well they’re the scowling, surly bunch who look just like a street gang, only uniformly outfitted with matching white Canon 70-200mm lenses. With accreditation, they are not anymore likely to misbehave than your average celebrity photographer (and that’s not setting the bar all that high), but without accreditation they are capable of some real nastiness in pursuit of a sellable image. At the film festival I’ve seen some unpleasantness from this crowd.Worse, I don’t recognise any of them, meaning they aren’t the usual suspects I meet on the media trail, but the international paparazzi – our Toronto breed are, true to the cliché of our national reputation, slightly more polite for the most part than the international version.Not good.And as Hilary’s stretch SUV pulls up, the crowd reacts, girls start screaming, the flashes are firing as she makes her way to the media area, but as soon as she gets inside the media area everything goes to whole different level of crazy.The paparazzi launch themselves at the crowd like a flying wedge. Fans swarm towards where she is standing. People are shoved right into me with a violent force, others are grabbing my arms, and trying to elbow in front.The impact of this swarming towards the celebrity is such that if the videographer hadn’t been beside me I would have been knocked right over. Fortunately, he also has a couple guys pushing against him, which shoves him into me, and the two oppossing forces almost cancel out! It's like the videographer and I have become a self-supporting structure in the middle of chaos.There is one guy pushing so hard against me to get in front that he is literally grunting with the exertion. I put my forearm across his chest and push back on him, but that meant that for most of these photos I had to do them one-handed.
