Almost ashamed to be a Photographer

I am Almost ashamed to be a Photographer these days

Here is the perfect example of the Latest reason to despise Photographers http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/23/people.johansson.ap/index.html?section=cnn_us

I completely understand the need for Journalists and Photo Journalists, but as a Photographer I despise Paparazzi worse than PWCs. They both give us all a bad name, but more and more these days they are getting dangerous. It is a shame when accidents like what happened in Kansas last week where a 17 year old was attacked and killed by a Tiger while she was being photographed with the animal, but is it going to take another incident like Princess Diana’s death before Paparazzi start using their heads.

In the article Scarlet Johansson was trying to elude "Photographers" that were trying to capture her going to a park. She wrecked her SUV, but luckily Scarlet and the others involved in this accident were not harmed. This truly is getting ridiculous. Stars have been charged with attacking these low life scum that invade their privacy. personally I think these SOBs need to be charged with Reckless Endangerment, Invasion of Privacy, Stalking and whatever else they can pin them with until we shut them down. I will admit I am a bit of a voyeur (probably why I got into photography) and I do love seeing some photos of the celebs caught off guard, but I think there is a fine line between photographing someone on the beach or at a park and chasing them for 4 days and causing an accident despite their claims to the contrary. While not all of them are scum I would say over half and probably closer to 90% of them give all of us Photographers a bad name. If we had tougher laws against these low lifes and actually enforced them maybe Diana would still be alive and well today and Scarlet and others would not have to risk their lives to maintain a little privacy.