CONFESSIONS OF A PAPARAZZI etc: Most Expensive Celebrity Pictures and their Offspring

Forbes Magazine - "There are so many tabloids and so many photographers that there's no money in just taking a celebrity photo." Or just any celebrity baby photo. Photographers say there isn't much of a market for some stars' children, like squeaky clean Hugh Jackman and his son Oscar Maximillian. Though X-Men: The Last Stand has grossed $440 million, the film star is hardly a tabloid draw. Other humdrum A-listers who elicit paparazzi yawns: Courteney Cox and daughter Coco and Oscar winner Rachel Weisz and newborn Henry Chance.

And while royals like Prince William or Harry, the strapping sons of the late Princess Diana, are among the most coveted paparazzi scores thanks to their global recognition could fetch top dollar, they're the exception, not the rule. America has little appetite for others, like Sarah Ferguson's daughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

It's really the big fish that mean big bucks. First snaps of an A-lister and her newborn--Gwyneth Paltrow and daughter Apple, for example--can fetch upwards of $100,000. In 1996, the must-have picture was of Lourdes, Madonna's firstborn. Six years later photographers stumbled over each other trying to score the first of James Wilke, firstborn of Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker. But Parker and hubby Matthew Broderick decimated the value of the first picture by posing outside the hospital for scores of press. (That photo is so undervalued, it can't be found on the web, oh did I mention none of these photos are mine. If you own them I can source you, or remove it from this site)

And if you think celebrity children are being exploited by the paparazzi, consider the fact that many celebrities get in on the action, cutting their own deals for first photos. (Whether candid or posed, first photos always generate the most cash.) In 2000, OK magazine is believed to have paid Catherine Zeta Jones and husband Michael Douglas 600,000 pounds for the first pics of their baby, Dylan. Last year, People magazine reportedly paid Britney Spears $500,000 for the rights to her son Sean Preston's first photo shoot.

Earlier this year, Time Warner's People also outbid rivals Star and US Weekly for the first exclusive shots of Donald Trump's fifth child, Barron, his first with third wife, former model Melania Knauss, taken inside the couple's multimillion dollar Manhattan penthouse. The baby, who occupies an entire floor of the palatial pad, owns his own gilded stroller. If recent rumors of a Nicole Kidman pregnancy prove true, the Oscar winner will carry the world's next most valuable money shot, according to industry watchers. That is, of course, unless her ex-husband's new bundle of joy has yet to make her debut. "Suri Cruise is the most sought after picture right now," says one Los Angeles based photo agency executive. "That is, if she even exists."