Looking back, Monday night was a high point in the professional partnership of Blaine Hewison-Jones and Austin Visschedyk, briefly known as the "Pint-Size Paparazzi."
Tipped off by the maitre d' that Meg Ryan was dining at Koi, they hustled over to the West Hollywood restaurant, Nikon cameras in their backpacks, and joined about a dozen much taller photographers huddled near the front door.
If Ryan was there, they missed her. Later that night, they also missed Paris Hilton when she was sprung from jail. But they had a great time. It was fun to hang out with the grown-up paparazzi.
By Wednesday, it wasn't fun anymore. The zoom lenses had turned on them, the novelty of high school kids hounding stars making them so big a story that their friendship couldn't take the strain.
"We were fighting about money and publicity," Blaine said, "and we don't want to hurt each other."
Next-door neighbors and best friends, Austin, 14, and Blaine, 15, bonded over dirt biking and stalked each other with paintball guns. They're enrolled in independent study programs through the alternative City of Angeles School, where Blaine is heading into 10th grade and Austin into ninth.
A few months ago their interests turned to photography and then, with the realization that celebrity watering holes were short skateboard and scooter rides from their West Hollywood homes, to celebrity photography in particular.
They had glossy business cards printed up, and their parents supplied them with high-end cameras. Blaine's uncle set up a website, pintsizepaparazzi.com.
They schmoozed the staff at Koi, Mr. Chow and other places frequented by camera-friendly names.
If they were hot on a celebrity's trail, they called their parents for permission to stay out past their 10:30 p.m. curfew.
Austin got lucky this month, selling a photo of Adam Sandler exiting a West Hollywood gym to the New York Daily News for $500. For his part, Blaine got "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest at Koi one night and posted the shot on the website.
Brad Elterman, co-founder of the agency BuzzFoto.com, took the boys under his wing. "I sold my first photo, of Bob Dylan, in 1974 when I was 16," Elterman recalled. "I can heavily relate to what they're doing."
He warned them about trespassing laws and advised them to stay in school "because this is an up-and-down business." And he helped place a small story about them in the Daily News last week.
