Paparazzi On The Run Celebrity Photographers Say Vilifying Them Smacks Of Hypocrisy.

With the free-lance photographers known as paparazzi facing public outrage for their supposed role in the car crash here that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, photographers of all genres closed ranks on Monday, contending that they were scapegoats for a public embarrassed over its insatiable appetite for intimate shots of celebrities.

“There’s too much hypocrisy,” said Jean-Francois Leroy, the director of the Perpignan Festival of Photojournalism. “Those who denounce the paparazzi today will be the first to buy the photos of the young princes crying at Lady Di’s funeral. The paparazzi respond to the photo agencies, which respond to the newspapers and magazines, which respond to the public.”

Still, with seven paparazzi detained for questioning after they chased the car carrying Diana and her companion, Emad Mohamed Fayed, who also died in the accident, photographers as well as editors of gossip and photo magazines were clearly on the defensive on Monday.

Public fury was being fed not only by the angry reactions of Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, and Fayed’s family, but also by a number of movie stars and celebrities, like Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone and Luciano Pavarotti, who have used the occasion to complain of being stalked and harassed.

The spotlight of blame may in fact turn away from the paparazzi since the Paris prosecutor announced on Monday afternoon that the driver of the Mercedes that crashed in a tunnel beside the Seine early Sunday had an illegal level of alcohol in his bloodstream. Yet it may still be difficult for the photography profession to shake off the perception that paparazzi somehow harassed Diana to her death.

“We’ve been declared the assassins,” said Frederic Garcia, a French photographer who until this weekend was willing to describe himself as a paparazzo.

Certainly, paparazzi - the name is taken from a sidewalk photographer called Paparazzo who was a character in Federico Fellini’s 1960 movie, “La Dolce Vita” - had long known that photographs of the princess were the easiest to sell.

In Britain, some 50 free-lance photographers virtually lived off Diana. “When you see Lady Di getting into a car, if you’re a good journalist you follow that car,” one Italian photographer said.

While paparazzi may be the most visible and best-paid members of the profession, they are a relatively new phenomenon. Movie stars and the occasional public figure like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis have always drawn photographers.

But it is only in recent years, as television has eaten into the market for traditional photojournalism, that the demand for intrusive photos of celebrities from tabloids and magazines has grown wildly.

A few independent photographers still concentrate on what they call serious journalism, like wars, natural disasters, social problems and political events, but they often struggle to make ends meet.

“You can’t get anyone to put up the money, and you’re happy to get expenses,” said Thomas Haley, an American photojournalist.

With the right photographs, paparazzi can earn in one day what photojournalists earn in a year.

It is a fiercely competitive arena, with paparazzi often staking out their potential subjects for days or weeks on end and risking beatings by bodyguards.

When one of them strikes it lucky, as when the Italian photographer Mario Brenna took the first photos of Diana embracing Fayed in a boat off Sardinia in July, he can earn $1 million for a single shoot.

Magazines like Paris-Match in France, Gente in Italy, and Bunte in Germany, or tabloids like The Sun and The Daily Mirror in Britain are willing to pay such sums to sell more copies.

The link between photographer and publication is provided by a series of specialist photo agencies.

Last weekend, it was the British press that asked the agencies to cover Diana, Leroy said.

At least one of those Paris-based agencies was reportedly offering color photographs of the crashed Mercedes, showing Diana covered in blood, and Fayed’s body.

Stephen Coz, editor of The National Enquirer, said that he had been offered exclusive U.S. rights to the pictures for $250,000. He said he had turned down the offer and urged other publications to do likewise.

Bild Zeitung, Germany’s top-selling daily, nonetheless published a color photograph on Monday of the automobile with rescuers still trying to extract the victims.

But what even nonpaparazzi photographers were eager to point out is that many celebrities - including Diana - were immensely skilled at using the media to promote and shape their images.

“People like Diana and Caroline of Monaco were at first naive, but then they understood they could use the press,” Garcia said. “You can’t say one day, ‘Come and photograph me,’ and the next day say, ‘I don’t want the attention.”’ Oliviero Toscani, the Italian photographer famous for creating Benetton’s image campaigns, suggested that the princess had invited some of the trouble she experienced.

“Rather than running away and being followed,” he told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, “why did she never let herself be photographed calmly with Dodi at her side? She always played hide-and-seek.”

The response of some celebrities is that even if they organize formal photo opportunities, paparazzi always prefer to catch them at a secret moment in the belief that greater intimacy sells better.

Joel Robin, a staff photographer for the respected Agence France-Presse, said he was reluctant to criticize paparazzi. “I can’t throw the first stone,” he said, “because this is a phenomenon of society. The paparazzi are just answering a huge demand from tabloids and magazines and, eventually, the public.”

ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Paparazzi: INtrusive photographers