My best-seller

Authors have best-sellers. So do photographers.

For me, I am proud to say was an out of focus, out take that I fired off by holding my camera up and burning off the roll of film after security ran me off a movie set.

With world syndication, I netted $5,000.

This the story.

I got a call from the National Enquirer to do a SPLIT DEAL with an L.A. Based film syndicate. I would get my standard fee from the “newspaper” and then I was to send a contact sheet and negs to the guy in L.A.

It was the set of “Shallow Hal” with Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jack Black, being filmed here in Charlotte. It was a stake out, so I haul out the 600mm and a monopod and a second body with a short zoom. They wanted Paltrow in a fat suit. I set up across the street, and just waited.

Her “fat body double” was an extra, who was a very big and beautiful woman, so I popped off some frames as soon as I saw her walk out of the trailer. In a grab and go, you are in a race until somebody hears the camera and security runs you off.

I had about 36 frames to the good and then here comes comes a rent-a-cop. I figure if they are going to run me off anyhow, I should cross the street and change to the shorter lens. They tell me to move along, so I do a hail Mary and burn the roll with the motor drive.

I really didn't know if it was Paltrow or not until I processed the film, and it wasn't Paltrow.

Being 6-foot-11 meant I had burned myself. I wasn't getting another chance.

The National Enquirer asked the rhetorical question, “Is this Gwyneth?” and it played a quarter page on page two. I Fed-Ex'd the contact sheet and negs to L.A.

The next I get a call and they said what I had was dynamite! I said thanks, and he said they had sold Australia, England already. He asked me if I knew kind of money I had already earned? Of course not, I said. And he said if I could accept a Fed-Ex the next day and I said sure.

Then he started explaining that I was in for 50% net of all proceeds, and this would trickle in, but I figured if it was worth an overnight charge it might be interesting. The first check was $1,500, a few weeks later another overnight, and it was a check for like $700, and this went on up to the time of the release of the film. Then I get another whooper, over $1,000. The grand total was $5,000.

When they sent me clips from fan mags, who bought the images, I was shocked. The fat double girl was a blurry image, at a weird angle...the kind of picture I would have cut off and thrown in the trash. But, they loved it because it looked like a “spy cam” and the caption had me hiding wait to get Paltrow's picture.

Not one check bounced, and I never did a paparazzi gig ever again.

I didn't think I could ever top that story.