“As more and more money is involved, tempers get shorter,” Brantley says.
And more and more people are involved. With the rise of digital photography, anybody can pick up a camera and call himself a paparazzo — all he or she needs is information about who is going to be where. Web sites such as Meet the Famous allow even novice photographers to snap pictures of celebrities and easily upload them for cash. For that reason, Cafe Milano owner Franco Nuschese prohibits customers from taking cellphone or other photos inside his restaurant, a favorite of both local politicians and visiting celebrities such as George Clooney. Nuschese says he can do little about the cameramen who linger on the sidewalk across Prospect Street, but “so far, we have not had a problem.”
With the paparazzi’s rise locally, some professional news photographers have raised concerns that go beyond propriety to security and safety.
Terrance W. Gainer, the former Capitol police chief who is now the Senate’s sergeant at arms, says the local group is still too small to be of major concern, working in a federal city that, increasingly, has grown to resemble an armed camp.
“Everybody knows the rules, and to the extent anybody strays from them, we get them in line pretty quickly,” Gainer says. “The whole thing you see on television — what goes on in New York and L.A. — may occur on the street, but it’s not an issue up here.”
Still, there have been a harbingers of L.A.-like unruliness.
Debra DeShong Reed, co-founder of a local public affairs firm, had to evict a group of rowdy photographers from an event at Ballou High School in Southeast Washington when actor Tobey Maguire was there doing volunteer carpentry work during inauguration week in 2009.
“They were knocking children over. They were trampling things. To me, it was very scary, because they trapped him,” Reed recalls. “They were pushing and crowding Tobey until he was in a corner. ... He’s kind of a shy guy, and he kept saying, ‘All I want to do is do some service. This is very weird to me.’ ”
When Russell Crowe was in town shooting “Body of Lies” in 2007, Drummond and Wilkins say, they pursued his car up Clara Barton Parkway in a chase with speeds that exceeded 85 mph. The actor ended up jumping out of the car and fleeing along the canal on a mountain bike that he pulled out of the trunk.
(Crowe’s rep did not return calls for comment.)
“It wasn’t a high-speed chase,” Drummond says when pressed, although he admits exceeding the speed limit. He and Wilkins both did time in the 1990s on drug distribution charges, according to records, but, aside from driving and parking violations, Drummond says he has never broken any laws in pursuit of a photo.
The photographer has little sympathy for celebrities such as Crowe who feel their privacy is being invaded. “It’s part of the business they signed up for,” he says. “They know it’s part of the business, that their lives are public. They get paid by the public. The more professional ones know how to embrace it.”
At one point this year, Drummond was asked by a New York newspaper to get shots of Lara Logan, the CBS journalist who was attacked and sexually assaulted by a mob while she was covering the crisis in Egypt. Drummond says he would have had no problem photographing her from afar — even if her bruises were visible. But interest in the story waned, and the assignment fizzled.
One recent morning, Drummond rises about 3 a.m. to watch the early ABC news and peruse sites such as People and Us Weekly, searching for the day’s celebrity buzz.
“I don’t sleep a lot,” he says. “My wife thinks I’m crazy.”
He briefly considers pursuing Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers — rumored to be in town for talks on the NFL lockout — but abandons that idea after he gets a tip at 7 a.m. that a number of female celebrities and their kids are expected at the Library of Congress. There, first lady Michelle Obama will be reading Dr. Seuss to schoolchildren, along with celebrity moms such as Jessica Alba and “Top Chef’s” Padma Lakshmi.
He grabs his cameras and heads out.
“I love my job,” he says. “It’s competitive. It keeps you on your toes. It’s kinda like sports — you want to be on the winning team, get the shots none of your friends got.”
Outside the Library of Congress steps as the celebrities arrive, he manages to get a great shot of Alba carrying her daughter, Honor, into the event. The two are climbing the steps in the sunlight, the marble columns of the city in the backdrop.
Afterward, Drummond is beyond pleased: a female celebrity with one of “the three B’s,” her baby.
“She had her daughter with her and she was holding the baby and she was smiling and she never really smiles,” he crows. “That’s the best you could ask for.”
Annie Gowen covers wealth, class and income for The Washington Post. She can be reached at gowena@washpost.com. Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
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