Friday, October 28, 2005

Twarting paperazzi through applied economic theory

One issue that Gye Greene and I occassional discuss is the price of fame. Among other costs, it would be sad to lose one's privacy.

One possible solution might be to apply the economic principle of Supply and Demand: as the supply of something increases, the value decreases -- thus lowering both the demand and the asking price. Conversely, when something is rare, that (usually!) increases its value.

This explains why candid photos of celebrities fetch such a high price: Oo la la! Britney Spears without any makeup!

Should GG and myself become famous one day, my proposed strategy is to flood the market with exceedingly mundane ''candid'' snapshots of ourselves: me brushing my teeth; me going into the grocery store; me leaving the grocery store; me getting to a car; me getting out of a car...

My flooding the market with photos of myself should utterly devalue them. Thus, there would be little financial incentive for photographers to stalk me (or GG, or his family) -- their payment from magazines would be too low to warrant it.


It would be worth a try. If we become famous. ;)


--TG

Monday, October 24, 2005

Goofing about with Gye Greene


Yesterday, Gye Greene took a few minutes away to goof around with me and the digital camera. We both decided that we needed new photos for the ''profile'' sections of our blogs.

Those with keen eyes might notice that I'm lacking my right arm. In brief, it has to do with an automobile accident that happened soon after Gye Greene and I met: GG still feels bad about it, although I've long since forgiven him.




I shot the photo of Gye Greene taken out back, in front of one of the many sheds. Curiously, out of all the photos we shot, he forgot to smile in all of them.

It was actually a rather hot day, so both of us were a bit warm: ''Sweating like a monkey'', as GG likes to say. (To which The Lady typically replies, ''How do you know how much a monkey sweats???'') So we both changed out of our costumes as quickly as possible! :)


--TG