Camera Shy

Before Britney Spears flashed her hoo-ha for photographers and Paris Hilton lived her life in front of cameras, some stars — real ones — weren’t always keen on paparazzi attention. No one knows this more than Ron Galella, who Time called “the godfather of U.S. paparazzo culture,” and who has been beaten, verbally abused and sued by stars he’s snapped guerilla-style. With the coffee-table book No Pictures (out now), he delivers a guilty-pleasure photo compilation of cranky stars trying to hide from his (and other photographers’) cameras.

Spanning the 1960’s to the 1990’s, Pictures shows bold-face names from Jackie Onassis to Sean Penn and Liz Taylor shouting, flipping the bird or going to comical lengths (Mick Jagger completely covered his head with a scarf) to avoid being snapped. One of our favorites? A candid shot of Julia Roberts’ rump sticking out of an NYC cab as she dove in to escape the photojournalist’s lens.

Galella adds to the voyeuristic aspect by including an anecdote about each of the full-page photos in the back of the book. Alongside a picture of an angry-looking Jackie O. riding her bike down a city street, Galella writes that the former First Lady ordered her Secret Service agent to “smash his camera.” The agent didn’t — and Galella, the ever tenacious photographer, got his picture.


No Pictures is available now from powerHouse Books.