SHOOTING STARS CAPTURING FAMOUS FACES ON FILM IS AN INDUSTRY UNTO ITSELF.

Byline: Fred Shuster Staff Writer

On Tuesday, the United States came a step closer to war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cost more lives, hundreds of embarrassing church documents were released in Boston - and Ozzy Osbourne turned 54.

To mark the day, the hard-rocking reality-TV star's wife, Sharon, took son Jack to Sharper Image in Beverly Hills to pick up a few gifts. A freelance photographer was there.

How did he happen to know Sharon and Jack would be at the store? He recognized the license plates on their car. Total recall is just one of the prerequisites needed to be a successful celebrity photographer in a town where several hundred photographers and a dozen agencies are combing Hollywood for saleable star sightings.

Celebs are rarely caught napping when it comes to publicity. Many star-studded photo opportunities are carefully controlled and announced well in advance. Along with movie premieres and awards shows, photo fodder can include court appearances such as a hobbled Michael Jackson's current travails in Santa Maria.

At the same time, there are those whose daily bread comes from catching a star shopping or wearing sweats to Starbucks. A good set of star shots nobody else has can rake in up to $35,000, especially during the current circulation war among the glossies People, US Weekly and In Touch.

``The major markets for entertainment photos are L.A., New York, London and certain cities in Europe,'' said Lester Cohen, a co-founder of WireImage, a widely respected photo agency that sells and markets pictures with offices around the world.

Competition is fierce. If a freelance celeb photographer doesn't shoot a captivating picture, he may have trouble making the rent.

``Its a very difficult job,'' said Pamela Golum, executive vice president of the Lippin Group, a top public relations firm that handles the Emmy Awards and other industry events. ``Celebrity photographers work very hard. There's a core group who are extremely professional and well-behaved and understand the guidelines and are earning an honest living. Then, there's another group, the stalkerazzi, who climb fences and invade people's privacy. That's a whole other ballgame.''

Stars often make life harder than it has to be while dealing with photographers. Some famous names encourage the cat-and-mouse game by trying to control every aspect of their public life, while others give the photographers what they need and everyone leaves happy.

For example, actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick allowed waiting press to take pictures of the couple leaving a New York hospital with their new baby boy. And Julia Roberts has sometimes allowed photographers who catch her somewhere to go ahead and shoot - with the caveat that they leave after the shutters click.

Gary Morgan, a reporter who worked in London's highly competitive Fleet Street and now co-owns Splash News & Pictures, a Santa Monica agency that syndicates about 200 photos daily around the world along with print stories, believes the reason celebrity photos are such a hot commodity is that stars are so prevalent in so many areas, and exposure to them only piques the public's interest.

``Celebrities are in so many aspects of people's lives today, not just on TV programs or in movies but in commercials, on billboards and promoting political or environmental concerns,'' he said. ``Everywhere you turn, there's a celebrity. And people want to know about them - if they're real people.''

Meanwhile, photographer Frank Griffin, who spent 30 years as a freelancer in Europe before co-founding the Los Angeles agency Bauer- Griffin five years ago, explained that People magazine, with an annual operating budget said to be $650 million, far larger than its competitors, is able to mount aggressive campaigns to purchase sought-after photos - sometimes merely in order to keep them out of the pages of US Weekly.

``They can pay $35,000 for pictures,'' Griffin said. ``US doesn't have the kind of money People has, and In Touch is taking a backseat because they're picking up the scraps. They're trying to avoid being drawn into the competition.''

Celeb photographers in the field, working away from prearranged access, use an array of sophisticated methods to get their shots. The days of a lone shutterbug hiding in the bushes are over. When sleuthing for casual star sightings, teams of photographers ride in unmarked vehicles and use cell phones and two-way radios to communicate with co-workers on stakeouts.

And once they capture the shot, digital technology helps put it around the world instantly.

``It means immediate turnaround,'' said veteran celeb photographer Jim Ruymen, speaking from the Santa Maria courthouse, where he was shooting the Jackson breach-of-contract suit. ``You can function like a wire service from the field. You can edit your images and transmit them without a land line.

``In the old days, it took a half-hour to make prints and another half-hour to transmit. Now, you can send 20 color shots around the world in an hour. And everyone wants more and more material. It's just wildly competitive.''

And remember Sharon and Jack's shopping trip for Ozzy's birthday? The photo, in which Sharon is seen wearing a cap that spells out ``F--- Cancer,'' sold for $2,500 to the company that owns the Globe, the Star and the National Enquirer. Look for it in print today.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) A familiar celebrity stakeout of late is the Santa Maria courthouse, where a crutch-using Michael Jackson is testifying in a civil case.

Jean-Marc Bouju/Associated Press

(2) To avoid a paparazzi crush, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick let photographers take a picture of them with their new baby as they left the hospital Nov. 1.

WireImage.com