Note to Self: You Are A Powerful Status Symbol
I just read an article in Time magazine about companies and free-lance photographers who are hired to follow and photograph regular, everyday people out for a night on the town. Apparently, some people are paying as much as $1,500 to be treated like a celebrity!
Phillip Barker agrees that a photographer is a powerful status symbol, even if it’s also an indulgence in narcissism. Barker, 29, posted an ad on Craigslist for a paparazzo to accompany him and 14 male friends during a bar-hopping birthday party in Chicago last November. Many of the responses were hostile (“You vain vain [expletive],” one read), but a woman, Mandy Johnston, took the job–delivering to the guys afterward an elaborate package of digital photos and prints and, during the evening, unexpected VIP stature: the crew skipped to the front of the line at several clubs. “We got in faster because of Mandy. People thought, These guys are important people,” Barker says.
A powerful status symbol? It might sound silly, but it’s true and I’ve seen it happen. A couple years ago I was walking around Adams Morgan with my camera. My friend was supposed to be making a website for one of the bars and we’d just shot a bunch of photos and were heading back to his apartment when we noticed the line waiting to get in to Chloe’s. It was a warm, late summer’s night and the place was packed and the line snaked down towards the McDonalds.
Trey, always the slightly mischievous one, told me to start taking pictures. I flipped on the external flash and started popping photos as we walked past the door and down the street. About 15 minutes later we returned and Trey approached the gate keepers guarding the entrance. A short bit of sweet talking and a gesture to me and my camera was all it took for us to jump ahead of the line. We were ushered to the first floor bar and the barman was instructed that “drinks are on the house for these guys.” We then spent a couple hours hanging out and taking photos. Needless to say, no one minded having their picture taken that night. If you carry around a big professional looking camera, people assume you must be a professional. The trick is to not correct them.
My other experience with the phenomenon described in the Time article was when I got hired to photograph a group of women who were having a girls night out on the town. Six women, all sorority sisters and long time friends, left the kids with their husbands and flew into DC for a reunion and to collectively celebrate their 40th birthdays. I photographed them as they had a special, VIP tour of the Capitol and then followed them down to Georgetown where they had reservations at a cozy little restaurant. I shot photos of them on the street and through the windows of the place and people did stop and stare and wonder who my “celebrity” subjects were.
Both these events were back in the fall of 2006… who knew that I was so cutting edge as to part of the early faux tabloid media entourage scene? I should mention that it was a lot of fun doing this and that you should contact me if you too would like to be a celebrity for a night.
Photo by Gary Taxali for TIME
