paperatzi

italian american slang. for a photographic investigator whose actions are for the public good. unlike the similarly named paparazzi (paparazza). a paperatzi takes pictures to draw attention to something.
i was in new york city from 2004 – 2005 studying up in danbury ct. i was in new york city in the early spring and i took a random picture of of some garbage bags that had a city of new york, tag on them explaining why they couldn’t take the garbage. in the opened bags i could see contaminated paper products. the paper appeared contaminated with food residue and as an environmentally aware person i knew it couldn’t be recycled. so for the ironic situation i took some pictures of the garbage bags and was caught and yelled at. by who i thought was the owner, 40 / 50 year old gentleman, smaller than me at 5’8″ and as large as myself.

he yelled out “hey paperatzi, get away from my trash…”.

i wasn’t sure what he meant and so i put my camera away. i was using a minalta slr camera. a older kind of camera and not digital, but it was the professional kind, with a power loader, the kind the paparazza use to take pictures of celebrities.

so i aproached the gentleman and apoligised. because i have a very good knowlage about the enviroment and recycling options from many decades of interest and activity.

so we got talking and i asked what he meant by a paperatzi. and he explained. above is the easies way of explaining it. i herd it a good few more times during my studies and each time it was known for the above situation.