How easy can it be for citizen paparazzi?

You are as likely to be without a means of taking pictures - whether an SLR, cheap point-and-click, or ever-present cameraphone - as you are your wallet and keys. It seems nothing has officially happened until it's been photographed and posted online.

Which is perhaps why Getty Images and Big Pictures have announced that they are encouraging non-professional photographers to take pictures for cash. Getty has set up a partnership with the photo-sharing site Flickr; its editors will trawl users' pages to find great images, which they will buy at the same rate as for established journalists.

Big Pictures, owned by the infamous Australian paparazzo Darryn Lyons, has started an offshoot called Mr Paparazzi where "the man or woman in the street can make BIG money from their own celebrity snaps. Now everyone s a paparazzo!"