A newly digitized collection of 1970s and 1980s celebrity and music-legend photographs by Brad Elterman is now available through Buzz Foto. Elterman, who is the co-founder of the young paparazzi agency, decided that Buzz Foto's present-day celebrity coverage would provide the perfect backdrop for his vintage images of Madonna, Jackie O and Bob Dylan.

A 1974 image of Dylan, onstage at The Forum in Los Angeles, was the first sale of Elterman's then-fledgling career. He has since toured Japan with teen idol Leif Garret, traveled to South America with German pop band Boney M and photographed The Eagles and Rod Stewart on tour. Elterman founded California Features International in 1980 and wrote a celeb-photo how-to Shoot the Stars in 1985. His last business venture prior to the launch of Buzz Foto in 2006 was Online USA, which was founded in 1992 and acquired by Getty Images in 2000.

Today, the 50-year-old shooter spends his time marketing "paparazzi as an art form," which is how he and co-founder Henry Flores have positioned the Los Angeles-based Buzz Foto. In the current celebrity-crazed atmosphere, paparazzi-style imagery is at highest demand, according to engineer-turned-artful-paparazzi and Buzz Foto's chief photographer Flores. He thinks photo editors seek spontaneity, as opposed to red-carpet or pre-arranged, stylized publicity stills.

What makes Buzz Foto different from others in the crowded celebrity-photo field? Elterman says that those who stalk Britney day and night do not care about the craft, randomly covering high-profile people without a real story behind the shot. Buzz Foto shooters, he says, strive to produce creative and artistic imagery, while "adhering to a creed of courtesy and elegance."

Agency co-founders consider the images they create to be serious art. Elterman goes as far as to compare their production to the work of legendary photojournalists, such as Henri Cartier Bresson. "Buzz Foto creates iconic images of daily life," he said. He predicts the agency's contemporary images will one day be sought by collectors and curators to chronicle celebrity, much as Cartier Bresson's street photos grace the walls of New York's Museum of Modern Art.

A February exhibit at LA's Maryam Seyhoun Gallery focused on the evolution of pop culture imagery and presented Buzz Foto's coverage of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. The agency's images are syndicated in 30 countries and often appear in People and US Magazine.