Turns out that the Lohans, Clooneys et. al. who have lately been complaining about being stalked by paparazzi are but victims of collateral damage in the intensifying internecine struggle within the celebrity photography industry. So says the NYT:

To the stars, the collision in May between cars driven by a photographer and Lindsay Lohan was just the latest result of the escalating tactics of Hollywood paparazzi who will stop at nothing to get a picture. Emboldened by the sudden willingness of law-enforcement officials to take their complaints seriously, celebrities and their lawyers have painted a picture of paparazzi as criminals, stalkers and provocateurs-at-the-wheel, using their vehicles as weapons if necessary to catch a celebrity looking ugly, angry or upset. To the paparazzi, however, this portrayal is utter nonsense, at best the result of stars seeing something happening in their rear-view mirrors but failing to understand it. Rather, they insist, celebrity victims like Ms. Lohan are merely collateral damage; the real battle is among the photographers themselves - pitting veterans against novices, native Angelenos against foreigners and a handful of rival companies against one another, all of them jockeying for position and profit in a wildly overpopulated but nonetheless increasingly lucrative business.

In short, more photographers = more photographs = market saturation = less money per shot = increasingly bare-knuckled competition = more everyday hassles for celebs as they Just Try To Live Their Everyday Lives But People Just Won't Leave Them Alone. I wonder if this also means a lowering of the bar of paparazzi-worthy celebrity-hood: are relatively low-level entertainers who would have slipped under the radar a couple years ago showing up in magazines? I'll commission a study from the Fishbowl think tank.