The 2010 documentary “Smash his Camera,” about paparazzi photographer Ron Galella, questions whether his images, which are still bought by collectors to this day, would still be considered art if his subjects weren’t famous. So if in his most famous photo “Windblown Jackie” the hair was not blowing in the face of the former first lady, but of any woman. Some deny this, others compare Galella’s work with that of Diane Arbus. And it’s true, on the paparazzi shots of yesteryear we see prominent people like Sophia Loren, Robert Redford or Marlon Brando directly in the vulnerable soul. “What do you want that you don’t already have?” the latter once asked the paparazzi, who replied, “A photo without sunglasses. That’s what the editors-in-chief want.” Whereupon Brando lost his composure and broke the photographer’s jaw.
Paparazzi are out, celebrities decide for themselves how they want to be seen
Born in 1931 to Italian immigrants and raised in the Bronx, Galella made it clear that his job was about making money. He went too far for that. For Jackie Kennedy, he was a stalker whom she took to court several times to obtain a cease and desist. The trials were the blueprint for the never-ending tug-of-war between celebrities and the media, who insist on their right to photograph public figures. It is and remains a love-hate relationship, because the windblown, disturbed in her privacy Jackie practically smiled at him! Famous people don’t want to be famous.
Raised in the Bronx, Ron Galella made it clear that his job was about making money.
(Photo: Mondelo/picture alliance / dpa)
In the 1960s, Ron Galella bribed security guards and assistants to always be there where nobody expected him. “There’s no limit to the expression on a face when you’re not expecting it,” he once said, and many a starlet spat at him for his impertinence. It is a fact that his callousness paved the way for the hordes of paparazzi who later chased Lady Diana to her death and Britney Spears barefoot into the gas station toilet. Nevertheless: five of his works hang in the New York Museum of Modern Art. His photos were close. And sometimes brutal, almost like in war. Which may be because he started his career as an Air Force photographer during the Korean War. Only then did he study photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, as well as acting and stage direction. His best pictures, he said, owed their drama to this study.
So will his imagery fade away as fewer people recognize the people who used to be his prey? Paparazzi is no longer part of pop culture in the bike helmet era. Celebrities decide for themselves how they want to be seen. Not even a human pore can be seen on social media, and even the most vulnerable moments are carefully staged. In this respect, Galella’s pictures are at least important documents from a time when losing control was not yet a deadly sin. Edward Ronald Galella died Saturday at his home in New Jersey at the age of 91, just before the Met Gala in his hunting territory of New York. Nowhere do poses and faces appear more artificial. He wouldn’t have been interested in this freak show anyway.