There is really only one industry in the Hamptons: the rich and famous. They propel the local economy whether you're talking about landscaping, real estate, hardwood flooring, waiting tables or taking unauthorized photos of celebrities for profit. Mr. Agudo spent years doing the first-driving a backhoe-before he decided to try the last, full time. In 2008, he started the Web site hamptonsgrind.com. Since then he has made his living running the site (he's looking for venture capital) and selling photos of celebrities to outlets like In Touch, Life & Style and sundry foreign publications.

The Hamptons have long been an upper-class refuge, a place where they could sun and swim among their own, unharassed by the rest of us. But in recent years, the culture of celebrity spectacle has firmly taken hold here, as much as it has in Manhattan, Los Angeles and London.

"I said, you know, let me make my hobby make me some money," he explained. "You can't grow up out here and watch your town be taken over by all the millionaires without, you know, wanting a piece of it."

Mr. Agudo, 39, is a big man who favors cargo shorts and short-sleeved button-up shirts. His close-shorn hair and sun-tanned complexion give him the air of an ex-military man, but he has lived in East Hampton all his life.

The Starbucks is where he begins each day's hunt and often where he gets his first photo.

As I was standing outside waiting for him to join me, George Stephanopoulos walked up-looking every bit 35 of his 49 years-wearing khaki shorts, a faded blue polo shirt and dingy white Jack Purcells. He had two dogs in tow, one a solicitous miniature dachshund, the other a barky beast of unapparent breed (possibly a Glen of Imaal terrier). After tying up the dogs, he headed into the Starbucks. I hung back and waited to see how Mr. Agudo would play the situation. Eventually, Mr. Stephanopoulos came back out, retrieved his dogs and went on his way.

Puzzled, I headed back inside to find Mr. Agudo talking to the comedian Michael Showalter in line.

Mr. Agudo came back to the table and excitedly asked, "Did you just see what happened?"

"Stephanopoulos or the guy you were just talking to?"

"Wait, is he somebody?" Mr. Agudo asked me.

"Yeah, he's a comedian. He's on TV. His name's Michael something."

"See, because I asked him if he was anybody, and he said no. I'm gonna go say, 'Hey Mike,' and see what he says."

After a moment Mr. Agudo returned to his seat, winked and made a chk-chk noise out of the side of his mouth.

"He totally did not like that," Mr. Agudo informed me, admitting that at first he thought Mr. Showalter might have been the musician Perry Farrell.

He was feeling the day's possibilities, the notion first thing in the morning that today might be the day when you catch someone really famous-Madonna, say-doing something really boring-grocery shopping, say-and sell the shot for a tidy sum. Rubbing his hands together, he said, "Here we go. Hopefully, get a good one today. A moneymaker." He darted outside to catch a snapshot of the newscaster before he disappeared. "We'll throw him on Hamptons Grind. Celebrity dogs," he added.

It was time to head out. Mr. Agudo made a preliminary round of nearby restaurants and shops. With his camera in his backpack and his hands in his pockets, he didn't walk as much as skulk. This lurking demeanor would seem even more suspect when we later dropped by a petting zoo in search of stars with their kids.

With no luck in town, it was time to hit the road. Mr. Agudo's white Ford Escort is conspicuous among the Ferraris, Maseratis, Aston Martins and immaculate classic cars. The first stop was East Hampton Main Beach.

After a brief stroll around the concession stand there, we got into the car, made a U-turn and slid back toward town. A white convertible Beetle approached from the opposite direction.

"Look, is this Russell Simmons? Look, there's Russell. Where's he going?" Mr. Agudo said. "See, this is the shit. He'd drive right by you. But to me, I'm in the business. He's nothing, but if you get him in the shot, on the beach. I hope he's going in there with his shirt off, yeah, you never know."

We made a U-turn, and crept up on Mr. Simmons' car from behind. Then we made another U-turn, exiting the lot. "He's just at the beach. Leave him be," Mr. Agudo decided. "I made money on him a little while ago. I'm not even gonna bother the guy," he continued, easing the car to the side of the road and adjusting his side mirror to better surveil the rap mogul.

"Where's Rev. Run? That's who I want to see today," he continued, referring to Mr. Simmons brother, the Rev. Joseph Simmons, an ordained minister and member of the rap trio Run-DMC.

Little more than 100 yards down the road, I spotted a flashy convertible, a 1970 Chevy Chevelle SS ragtop, whose driver I recognized.

"There's Bon Jovi," I pointed out.

"Holy shit!" Mr. Agudo exclaimed as the rock star made a left in front of us. We made a hasty U-turn and passed Mr. Bon Jovi's gate just as he pulled into the driveway of his redoubtable house and under a well-concealed carport.

East Hampton in the summer is very much a walking and biking community (though the traffic is still a special kind of hell), and each cyclist or pedestrian we passed received a once-over from Mr. Agudo. We passed a woman jogging, and Mr. Agudo sang to himself, "Who could it be? Are you anybody famous?" We passed a couple in a pedal car. "I thought it was someone, but ..." It turned out it was no one, just a person. This is a chronic pastime out here, even for the nonprofessionals.

EVERYONE HERE IS looking to see who everyone is. More to the point, everyone is looking to see if anyone is someone. Eventually a series of questions emerges. First: Who is that person, and is he or she famous? If not, second: What is he or she doing here? Third: Am I famous? If not, fourth: What am I doing here? Fifth: Who am I? Of course, these questions are null and void if the subject is wealthy.

No doubt Mr. Agudo has felt these pangs of being a nobody in a town full, at least during the summer, of somebodies. As we drove by a particularly large oceanfront property, he pointed out, "This is some really rich guy. He tore up the dune and didn't even care. It must be nice, man. Just to move somewhere, total disregard for any laws ... Maybe I'll have that problem one day. But living out here, and seeing them, with all the cars, you want that problem. I don't want to be a snob or anything. I want to go to the next level. That's why we're doing this."

Like all paparazzi, or at least all those quoted in the press, Mr. Agudo makes a distinction between his modus operandi and those of competing photographers. He respects his subjects' privacy; they disregard it completely. This impulse toward decency-even if often not adhered to-could have its drawbacks. As Peter Howe, author of Paparazzi, once put it, "The real paparazzi are the ones who come up with these amazing creative ways of invading somebody else's privacy."

Felix Filho, a photographer with the infamous and wildly successful Los Angeles photo agency X-17, was even more forthright. "To be a pap," he told The Atlantic, "you
have to be ready to do anything, legal or illegal." At times, Mr. Agudo seems to lack such resolve.

Though he has paid hot-dog vendors and shopkeepers for tips and once rented a cherry picker to hoist him into the air for an over-the-fence shot, Mr. Agudo favors a noninvasive, cooperative approach. After all, these people are his neighbors. "I honestly think," he told me, "that if a lot of them knew that I was just a local boy trying to do right by 'em, you know, do right by myself, they might give me a little opportunity. ... You just gotta be forward and ask. If you don't, you never know.

"I'm just trying to get out of Three Mile, like Eminem," he continued, referencing both the name of the trailer park where he lived, Three Mile Harbor, and the movie 8 Mile, starring the popular white rapper. One paparazzo told me he wouldn't work a summer in the Hamptons for less than $100,000. Mr. Agudo has not yet moved into that income bracket. He told me that his best "get," a shot of Lindsay Lohan, netted him several thousand dollars. Some he sells for as little as $20. 

We headed to a local yacht club-the name of which Mr. Agudo requested go unmentioned-to "check out this guy, see if he's on tour or not."

"Who?" I inquired

"Paul McCartney."

Sir Paul, it turns out, is the ur-quarry, part of the hamptonsgrind.com origin myth. "I was doing photography like 10 years ago," he recalled. "Just landscape. From there, I bumped into a few people. Paul McCartney, when he was going out with Heather Mills. I had a landscape camera, and Heather Mills got out of the car and smacked me with her pocketbook." He had shown me the photo earlier, of the couple in a Rolls-Royce. "I'm sure ever since that day, he hasn't really been driving that around too much. He's probably got it in storage." He didn't use the photo because Ms. Mills had been so upset. "They were on their way to Splitsville, U.S.A., anyway."

We eased into the club parking lot, did the usual scan for recognizables, saw none and made a U-turn. Back on the Montauk Highway, Mr. Agudo reconsidered an earlier prohibition on stopping at a local church fair. (Earlier, he said, "I'm not gonna bother them with their families." Now, he said, "They all live here. Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts. For them, they could walk here.")

As we parked the car, a man in a large white Chevy work truck slowed, rolled down his window and yelled to Mr. Agudo, "I just saw Gwyneth."

"Oh, shit," he responded. Back in the car.

After some scouting of the roads near the house where Gwyneth Paltrow summers with husband Chris Martin, we came to a stop at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Bluff Road. Mr. Agudo looked thoughtfully left then right, then left again, muttering to himself, "If I were Gwyneth ..." Right again, then left, he then proceeded straight, through the intersection. Apparently, if he were Ms. Paltrow, Mr. Agudo would head for the beach. Easing down the sand-dusted road, we came up behind a caravan of cyclists, what looked to be a few teenagers and a grown woman. Mr. Agudo craned his neck around as we pass. The woman was blond, but, as it turned out, not a famous movie star. "There's too many bikers for me today," Mr. Agudo said.

We arrived once again at the small parking lot of the beach. Two flaxen-haired girls were sitting languidly by a fruit stand. Mr. Agudo, furrowed his brow and scanned the limited horizon for a glimpse of Ms. Paltrow. She was nowhere to be seen, the closest thing being the lanky, towheaded pair behind the crate of plums.

As we look out at the ocean, a tanned teenage boy walked down the steps from the concession shack, spinning a lanyard.

"Hey, is Seinfeld down there?" the boy barked to the girls.

"Oh, shit." Mr. Agudo's ears pricked up. "Did you hear that?" He could already envision the big Jerry shot.

The girls slowly turned their sunglasses in the boy's direction.

"What?" said one.

"What?" echoed the other.

He pointed to the front of their table. "Your sign fell down there," the boy repeated.

"Oh," they answered in unison, without moving to fix it.

U-turn. Back up the road. Away from the beach.

editorial@observer.com

THEATER
George Stevens Jr.'s new play, Thurgood is now onstage at the Booth Theater. In it, Tony Award winner and Academy Award nominee Laurence Fishburne portrays Thurgood Marshall, America’s first African-American Supreme Court Justice (also the grandson of a slave). [On Sale Now]

Conor McPherson’s Port Authority is making its New York debut at The Atlantic Theater Company. From Playbill: "Set against the backdrop of contemporary Dublin, Port Authority weaves the stories of three generations of Irishmen as they experience loss, failure and the elusiveness of love. Conor McPherson (Shining City, The Weir, Dublin Carol) exposes the heart of the common man with his customary wit and humor in his return to Atlantic following his acclaimed production of Dublin Carol." [On Sale Now]

Here is an email I got from a talented artist-turned-political-operative:

In that spirit, check out these pictures on The Jeff Pulver blog (via JustHillary) of the exclusive Hillary Clinton's fundraising event in East Hampton this weekend. Jeff's coverage has a heavy focus on the entertainment -- Jon Bon Jovi, who performed live at the event.

And in the invite category, here's an aesthetically pleasing specimen that our artist friend wanted to nominate: an event for John Sabini's re-election campaign in the 13th Senate district. After the jump.

-- Azi Paybarah

Coolest fundraiser ever?

My wife has had a learner's permit for more than three years, and she already failed the driver's test once, which she blames on me. She says the examiner, a lean dour man with a clipped mustache, a hanging judge if ever there was one, told her she looked in the rearview mirror too much, and that I had told her to do that.

They say a husband is not supposed to teach a wife to drive, and my experience would tend to bear that out. Several times when I've corrected her, my wife has pulled over on the side of the road and said, "I'm not driving any further."

Still, I feel a duty to give firm instructions-Don't flirt with the yellow line, look backwards all the time you're backing up-because I'm genuinely worried about her driving. I don't think she's a very good driver, and my wife often says as much herself. She tore up her license 20 years ago after she drove onto a clay tennis court in the middle of the night and the owner became hysterical, and she sometimes offers scarily detached observations at the wheel, like when she said driving was like a video game. "It gives you a tiny bit of stuff to do while you're in the car, as opposed to just sitting there."

The last time she pulled off the road she got out and got in the back seat. "Neither B-nor D-was a batterer," she said, referring to my predecessors.

I decided to wait her out. I said, "You're going to get back in and drive, you have to learn how to drive." I thought of something her father once told me. A long time ago, I asked him to give me two adjectives for each of his three daughters. When he came to my wife he said, Volatile. My father-in-law is even-tempered, and I came to see that in fights I should remind myself of the temperamental issue and just stay calm. I lounged in the front seat for a few minutes till she finally got back in and drove. "Only if you say nothing," she said.

Getting this house has been a lot more stressful than the driving lessons, because we're moving into the country and I worry about the pressure that's going to put on the marriage. We've been together nearly 10 years, we're slouching into middle age, and I know we often feel sick of one another. Yet we're choosing to put ourselves further from the city and its distractions. I worry that at the very time I'm losing my looks and appeal, I'm losing my social escape hatches, too. That even if I wanted to bust out of the marriage, or go nuts, just get air, I wouldn't be able to. I'm stuck with my wife in an old brick house in Dutchess County, lifting up linoleum on the Journal-American headlined, "Ingrid's Baby Is Mine, Says Rossellini."

For another thing, the bank has been dicking us around. Back in May, I paid to lock in a 7.25 percent rate, good till July 4. After that, interest rates clicked up, closer to 8 percent, and I felt smart.

Then, on July 1, the bank informed us that they wouldn't give us the money till the frayed electrical service cable had been replaced. It was a fire hazard, they said. I spoke to my lawyer and got pretty angry. Maybe it's a fire hazard, but it's been that way 15 years, and this is a big job, I said. They didn't tell us about this a month back when I or the seller could have done something. I said it was an unfair business practice, aimed at cranking the rate.

Then my wife got on the phone with him. She said, "Look, we know about this kind of thing. My father was a banker, I've worked for Newsweek and women's magazines, and my husband works for The New York Times Magazine ."

She got off the phone and we drove out to the house with an electrician. Now I was pissed off at her. I said, "I've told you before it makes me enormously uncomfortable when you use my relationship with The New York Times in private dealings."

"I was just telling him about your experience in reporting," she said.

"Oh come on," I said. "In that context, it's a threat."

"This is the heart of your problems," she said. "You don't use your powers, you hold yourself back. It's your older-brother complex. You really could be working on it in therapy."

I said, "I don't care what you think. Maybe you're right but you're not allowed, O.K.? This is my business. I have a difficult enough relationship with The Times not to have to go into some guy's office round-shouldered, with my head lowered, and say, 'I told my wife, but she ignored me.'"

She was quiet for a second. Then I said, "You can't do it, all right? Do anything on your own account, but don't mention The Times . Don't cross the line, don't even tiptoe up to the line."

The next morning, I told the bank clerk that what they were doing struck me as an unfair business practice and I was prepared to complain to the state banking commission and the Federal Government, too.

Then my wife got on the phone and said, "We know about these things. I'm a reporter for women's magazines, my husband has done a lot of work for The New York Times ."

One of the reasons we're moving is because we're too close to our neighbors. You can hear their Bon Jovi and their air conditioners, their verbal abuses, and you have to be neighborly. This time I didn't care what anyone heard. I was red in the face and nearly crying with frustration as obscenities flew from my mouth.

"I really thought we were talking about something else yesterday," my wife said.

"Do you know the English language?" I shouted. "I said, Don't even tiptoe up to the line, and you danced right over it."

"I'm just telling her the truth. I didn't say you were doing a story. Be honest."

"You be honest. Do you have any intellectual honesty left?" I said. "You agreed and you completely violated what you promised."

In a fight, my wife never goes on the defensive. She stares at you like you're a stranger who bumped into her on the subway. It's scary.

"Oh, I'm really sorry," she said sarcastically. "But I'm not going to walk down the street like this." She grabbed one foot in her hands and hopped across the floor. "I'm going to use all my powers, O.K.? When I'm in a street fight, I'm not going to hold my hand behind my back."

"I told you this is an ethical issue to me."

"No, it's your childhood issues you can't expunge"-in a patronizing tone. "It's like you're looking at everything through these deep dark sunglasses."

"I don't give a fuck what you think about my issues. You can fuck off, and you will damn well never do that again. Never."

I walked out of the room with the air that I was never going to speak to her again.

The mortgage company went into a sweat. The woman handling the mortgage said she had never been accused of bad faith before and, in view of the threats, she had to turn the matter over to a supervisor. The supervisor was nice as ice. It went back and forth for an afternoon, then she called to extend the 7.25 for a week so we could get the electrical done.

My wife did a little archetypal dance around the house. She held her hands at shoulder height, elbows akimbo, jabbing her index fingers in the air in the direction of her shoulders, in a rhythm, chanting, "I did it. I did it." She said the lesson was that feminine wiles are far more effective than abstracted high-mindedness.

I viewed it more in other terms. One of the things that drew me to my wife was my WASP-ophilia, my feeling that I was trading out of the Jewish matriarchy and gaining gender power my father didn't have. My wife apparently saw the trade from the other way around. She uses a lot more Yiddish than I do.

That afternoon, I was sitting outside with my friend Richard telling him the story when my wife came up the sidewalk holding an ice cream cone. "They tried to overcharge me 50 cents, then I told them my husband has done reporting for The New York Times ," she said, and went into the house. Richard turned to me blandly. "She's a ballbuster."

On the way to the driver's test, my wife said she didn't want her license, anyway, she wasn't a good enough driver, and I tried to build up her confidence. "Compliments are like borrowed jewelry," she said, brushing me off New-Ageishly. "You're wearing it and then it disappears because it's not really yours."

Things got worse at the testing place when she pulled the same examiner as two years back, the grim guy with the clipped gray mustache. They rolled away and I stood against a fence with a bunch of 16-year-olds. The car rolled back up on the other side of the street a few minutes later, and I could tell she had passed from the little smile she got when he got out of the car. She told me she'd sucked up to him sweetly.

We both felt pretty good, and she kept the wheel going to the closing. It was on back roads, and she was only doing 35. Sometimes she drives too slow, other times too fast.

"You want to maintain speed," I said.

"Yet again you're incorrect," she said. "You're perfectly within your rights to go anywhere within 10 miles of the speed limit. And if the weather is inclement, it's illegal to go the speed limit. I discussed this with my examiner."