By ROBIN GIVHAN
Sunday, October 7, 2007

PARIS

One of the traditions of the seasonal ready-to-wear shows, which ended here today, is the celebrity photo scrum. A famous person is spotted walking into the venue -- typically trailed by several large security guards -- and photographers charge their prey. Each shooter vies to capture the same image: the celebrity perched gingerly on a tiny chair in the front row, essentially doing nothing.

At the same time, members of the audience -- now equipped with their own digital cameras, cellphone cameras and BlackBerry versions -- raise their arms in the universal celebrity salute, hoping to snag pixelated evidence that they were in the proximity of a famous person. Fame connotes importance. Thus celebrities can increase the significance of events they attend and of people within their orbit -- or so goes the thinking of party planners, publicists and fans.

Even those people who consider themselves too sophisticated or dignified to take a hurried snapshot take a mental one. They stare at the celebrity, inspecting clothes and hair and judging whether he looks better or worse in real life.

A lot of the fascination, of course, simply has to do with the hunt for evidence that the performer from the movies, the television show or the music video is real. Onlookers are trying to extract a bit of truth from the glossy fiction. They are trying to determine, based on how much chaos the celebrity causes and how he responds to it, just how down-to-earth he is.

Sting caused a photo frenzy at the Christian Dior show but never broke a sweat. Does that make him more or less "real" than Kanye West? He went virtually unnoticed at the Yohji Yamamoto show, crouched at the front of the standing room section at Issey Miyake's and in both instances seemed perfectly happy with his near anonymity.

Celebrity photos are more than just stolen snippets of truth, though. From the click-and-run fan picture to a formal portrait, such images form a continuum that influences and muddies our definition of success. In a culture that devalues intellectuals, that has grown skeptical of scientific discovery, become cynical about public service and suspicious of great wealth, fame has become the most common method for measuring success.

One of the most memorable images in popular culture is the 1991 Vanity Fair cover that featured a formal portrait of a naked and pregnant Demi Moore, an actress whose physique had attracted more acclaim than her body of work. The picture was taken by Annie Leibovitz, who is best known for her celebrity pictures.

Leibovitz's work will be the subject of an exhibition opening this week at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The Moore pregnancy picture, which is included, was notable not simply because it was a revealing image of a pregnant woman. It was a picture of a famous actress who was pregnant and proud. She was not looking contemplatively at her belly. She did not have her back turned coyly toward the camera.

It portrayed pregnancy as beautiful and sensual, but it also positioned the pregnant woman as assertive and strong. Moore's stance isn't confrontational; she isn't staring the reader down. She has transcended the need even to deal with the reader.

Leibovitz's images of the famous rarely reveal any frailties. She eloquently expresses their public persona in exaggerated terms. Moore presents herself to the world as a tough and defiant woman, comfortable with her sexuality, body and beauty. Whether that is truth or fiction is not Leibovitz's focus. She validates the gloss. She captures the aura of prestige and exceptionalism that hangs over the celebrity.

Celebrity images are now captured with the kind of elaborate reverence once reserved for royalty and heads of state. Whether Leibovitz is shooting actors or aspiring world leaders, there is little indication of a hierarchy. Her photo of Barack Obama on the cover of Men's Vogue, for instance, could just as easily have been of Brad Pitt. The photo was about the aura of fame and how it all too often is confused with success.

A starlet who wants to be considered more successful than her single mediocre film need do little more than dress up and walk down the nearest red carpet to have her picture taken. Eva Longoria may not be the desperate housewife with the most critical success as measured by awards, but her highly photographed wedding celebration managed to distract from that fact. (Beware: Too much exposure transforms fame into infamy. See Paris Hilton. See Longoria if her face appears on "Access Hollywood" one more time.)

Celebrity has become a fool's gold version of success. The famous get free stuff. People ask for their autographs. Doors are opened. Quality of work be damned.

Those rushed paparazzi photos make this faux success seem readily accessible, particularly shots of scruffy actresses making a morning Starbucks run, which popularize the premise that celebrities are "just like us." The paparazzi shot is akin to the old-fashioned family snapshot, the one in which mom or auntie puts her hands up in front of her face to protest the intrusive Polaroid lens. Not now, honey! I don't have my face on!

The cellphone picture provides proof of just how close the photographer was to the intoxication of fame. And the ultimate prize is snagging a photograph of oneself smiling next to a celebrity. If a celebrity photo is documentation of success, then the average Joe posing next to an actor or singer is proof that -- at least for a split second -- he has made it as well.