They're Hollywood's million dollar babies. Born rich, famous -- and likely cursed with a freakish name befitting a fruit or Biblical figure -- a mere snapshot of them can fetch seven figures for an enterprising shutterbug. We're talking about the children of Hollywood's elite, of course -- the tomkittens and babegelinas of Tinseltown around which an increasingly rabid celebrity industry revolves.

Andrew Stone is an L.A.-based photographer who has witnessed firsthand the whirlwind that follows a celebrity birth.

"There's always a massive frenzy to get the first pictures of the parents and children together," he says.

"It's the same pattern everytime."

Maybe the same pattern. But rarely has the demand for such photos been as intense as it is now -- what with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes welcoming their daughter Suri into the world this week, and with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie set to release their latest co-production shortly. Their last one, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, grossed about $180 million US in North America. No one expects the photos of their forthcoming child to generate quite as much -- but it will be incredibly lucrative nevertheless.

Exclusive first-time photos of the Cruise infant, it's said, could go for as much as $2 million US, while snapshots of Brangelina's offspring could be worth even more.

Michelle Lee, the executive editor of In Touch Weekly, explains "the average reader has nothing else in common with celebrities so the pregnancy makes the celebrity far more relatable. It makes them more real. There is a hunger for everything celebrity related these days from where they vacation and eat to what they wear and what their homes look like. There is an even greater thirst for the first look at the couple's child."

One Sun source predicts photos of Pitt and Jolie's offspring will eclipse the value of any pictures of Suri. "Tom Cruise has lost a lot of his popularity. He's not the golden boy anymore. Even though he's still a massive star, he's just not as cool as he used to be."

With Pitt and Jolie, conversely, "I've never seen as much hype as everyone is putting into it. It's way over the top."

Says Lee, "Brad and Angelina are considered among the most beautiful people on the planet so everyone wants to see what their child looks like. There's also a great deal of controversy surrounding their relationship. People still love to speculate whether they were having their affair when he was still married to Jennifer Aniston. She got pregnant pretty quickly after they began appearing in public as a couple. Readers want to know everything possible about them."

Including where Jolie will give birth. Reports have suggested it will be in Namibia. "She has confirmed it with an African official," Lee says, adding a private yacht has been offered as a safe haven for her. "It has a helicopter pad available in case anything should go wrong ... It would be virtually impossible for her to have the child in Los Angeles. It would be a mad house."

Much like the scene outside the Cruise estate in recent days -- a birth obviously not without its own controversary.

"The reason there is so much interest in their baby is that the whole pregnancy has been greeted with numerous conspiracy theories," Lee says. "There are people who don't believe Katie was actually pregnant. Her baby bump kept changing size and her belly got so oddly shaped. This is the first time a celebrity birth has been greeted with such suspicion so people want to see if the baby actually looks like Tom and Katie."

Not that celebrities are powerless in deciding how the world first sees their baby. There are numerous options, for both Brangelina and TomKat, aside from simply hiding out and being hunted by paparazzi.

They could do what Julia Roberts and husband Danny Moder did last year when they sold photos of their twins (for about $150,000) and gave the cash to an environmental charity. People magazine is said to have forked over about $500,000 for the first photos of Britney Spears' and husband Kevin Federline's baby, Sean Preston. The pair then reportedly gave the money to a hurricane Katrina charity. Likewise Pitt and Jolie are expected to sell their baby photos in exchange for a donation to their favourite cause -- possibly Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti charity, which People reportedly gave $500,000 US to last year in exchange for the first pictures of a pregnant Jolie.

Or they could do what such stars as Gwyneth Paltrow and Sarah Jessica Parker have done after giving birth -- bring the newborn out for all to see.

The result? A $1-million photo suddenly becomes a tenth as valuable. Says one photographer the Sun spoke to: "I would advocate just taking the pictures and putting them out. Get your next door neighbour to shoot a roll of film with a 35mm camera. Once the pictures are out there, it's done. It would take all the weight off the situation."

In fact, Lee says Cruise is expected to do just that in the coming days.

"Our sources tell us Tom plans to greet the press with Katie and the baby so that every publication will have a photo at the same time. It will be very soon. Possibly in the next couple of days. Tom is extremely savvy when it comes to PR and he knows this is the best way for him to handle the frenzy over that first photo.

"By doing it this way he will be in control and that's what he likes. Tom just has to look at what happened to Britney Spears when she tried to hide her baby from the paparazzi. She became a virtual prisoner in her own home. He won't go for that."