When does imitation become plagiarism?

ian_greant said:

What is the real issue here? Do we create ownership of something, anything just because we photograph it? Is it fenced off forever so that no one else can approach it with a lens in hand?

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Ian, you have missed the point or didn't bother to read the original posting. What I am talking about are photographers who as soon as they see something published, or the work of another photographer that impresses them, instantly run out and try and do their own knock-off. If they are newbies then I can understand it could be an educational thing, but once they have mastered the craft aspect then it becomes something else IMHO.

I have always admired your stuff and have even tread along the same trails as you have. But if we have photographed the same things, which we have, people could easily pick out who's photos are who's. Ya I know cause yours are the better ones LOL.

Can one show urban sprawl without "plagiarizing" Robert Adams? Can one shoot Aspens at magic hour or in the diffuse light following a summer storm without "plagiarizing" Ansel Adams? Can one shoot a carnies, or transvestites, or crying children without "plagiarizing" Diane Arbus?

Yes, Yes, and Yes.

The danger of this trend in thinking is that of "The Melancholy Elephant," a story by author Spider Robinson. The central questions to the story and this discussion are both "What is original?" and "What is derived." That which is derived is not necessarily a copy or plagiarism. That which is original is almost always based on something that someone has done before.

If someone tried to pass off their Pepper as Weston's "Pepper No. 30" that is the photographic form of written plagiarism and fraud. If however, someone shoots a pepper or a breast or a sink or a ruined plantation on an 8x10 and contact prints it using Azo, it may or may not be "original." The work is the determining factor (even beyond the intention) in my opinion.

Matthew Brady shot the bloated and decomposing refuse of war. Does that make Eugene Smith's Iwo Jima and Tarawa shots less powerful or less original?

Michael Smith opines in "On Teaching Photography" that all good art has a basis in the "personal, historical, technical and cultural." As far as I'm concerned he's right. I see value in learning the style and techniques of Weston, or Arbus or Adams or Smith. It is an opportunity to use these differing visions to create a personal vision which may be based on them all but different from each as well.

Mike Davis

You can't even begin to recreate Weston peppers without the funnel.

There is a spellcheck button on the bottom right of the "Reply to Thread" screen.

Every moment is unique.

Well I went out for a nice long walk at lunch time. Got to thinking (that hurt in itself LOL) why should I give a #%&% what others do. I have my own path to follow and will do so. Getting worked up over this type of thing is a distraction and ultimately will not produce anything positive for me.

Those that choose the path well travelled are probably happier with their work than I am with mine. I am never totally happy with my work and am always looking for a better way to photographically interpret my world.

Smoke'm if ya got'em.

Will S said:

There is a spellcheck button on the bottom right of the "Reply to Thread" screen.

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neighs to cee sum won looking out ofr owr spelnig hapits.

Eric,
Just out of curiosity, what brought this on?

mark said:

neighs to cee sum won looking out ofr owr spelnig hapits.

Eric,
Just out of curiosity, what brought this on?

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ran out of meds :rolleyes:

Will S said:

You can't even begin to recreate Weston peppers without the funnel.

There is a spellcheck button on the bottom right of the "Reply to Thread" screen.

Every moment is unique.

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Three true statements. I'm not sure what they mean in context, but they are true.

Mike Davis

Yeah Eric, who's the dirty rat that got you all worked up anyway.


Michael

I've been watching this all day trying to figure out what my opinion is. (hoping to plagurize someone else's thoughts as mine) I guess at the end of the day it all comes to personal responsibility and initiative. A lot of people out there use one form of art or craftmanship as a distraction from their reality. Tecknical competency and artistic vision are two different beast that ocassionally roam together then sometimes collide to produce something magical. Yes I think re-creating others work is plagiarism but, so what! every moment is different and the truth is, our whole sub conscious response system is fragments of plagiarized material fed to our brains non-stop all day every day with advertising, billboards, radios, t.v's signs, packaging, etc.
Now if someone decides they want to put themselves out there as an "ARTIST" then their first responsibility is to make whatever their craft/medium their own. This is tough but not impossible. Somebody already stated in this thread. "Everything in the past 200 years of photography has been done". I think that is an excuse for accepting failure. Independent thinking does not have to happen 24/7 but it is, only very subtle variations on what already exists. A repetitive motion that eventually develops it own memory. I'm not sure people really give themselves the time to find and learn from themselves enough to create Independent artistic thought. If they did I think everyone eventually would have no need to emulate the work of popular figures from the past.

ileake said:

Now if I posted the second image as my work, then although there never was a "Joe Cornish original", I would still be committing plagiarism.

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Why? It is still your photo. Joe may have given you pointer, but you still had to make the image, not Joe. You really don't know, Joe may have not taken the image the way he suggested; his suggestion may have been just to help you with your composition.

There's plagiarism, and there are things like imitation, unoriginality, hommage, and influence.

I do see plagiarism as more like the legal case that Mark mentioned than any of the other examples here--when an advertising agency, for example, can't afford or won't pay a real artist and then gives some of the work to a commercial photographer to produce a knock-off. Maybe the artist doesn't want to do commercial projects (and can afford to turn them down!), doesn't want to be associated with the project, and then something that might be confused with their work appears in a public place, like using a sound-alike on a commercial for an automobile, for instance. Now if the original is so easily copied, then maybe it wasn't so original in the first place, but still, I think plagiarism involves some intentional dishonesty, and this kind of imitation is it.

If a student presents someone else's work as their own and gets caught, say purchasing a paper from a paper writing service or lifting something wholesale from a book, that student fails and is usually reported to a dean or disciplinary committee. Fortunately, I haven't run into too many cases like this in my 12 or so years of college teaching. But if a student just hasn't learned to provide correct documentation of evidence, which is a much more common type of "unintentional plagiarism," I'll usually just hand the paper back and refuse to grade it until all the citations are in order. And if a student just writes a boring and unoriginal paper, as many of them do, they'll just get a mediocre grade. I've looked at some of those papers from the paper writing services, by the way, and they are usually worse than the worst papers I've ever received from honest students.

David A. Goldfarb said:

There's plagiarism, and there are things like imitation, unoriginality, hommage, and influence.

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I like your definitions David. Using the term plagiarism was probably the wrong term to start off with.

This is an interesting thread …

In other artistic disciplines, imitation is used as a teaching tool. In one of my wife’s graduate art history courses, they had to produce forgeries of very recognizable works, in order to learn and understand the materials that the artist used.

I was a music major. In one composition course, we had to write “Bach” two-part inventions. We did this by analyzing and de-constructing Bach’s inventions until we understood how they were put together. We then used the structure to create an invention that closely resembled Bach’s in every way except one – the artistic value. I still have mine – they’ll never be mistaken for a Bach by a listener, but they got “A”s for the exercise.

In both of these exercises, the copying was to learn. I understand all of the issues cited about the ethics of copying. But, let me speak for the pure amateur. As a photographer, I have no delusions about being an artist – I don’t even try. I just love cameras and I like to take pictures.

But I do attempt the “look” if you will, of certain photos since it helps me learn. And, if I could attain that look, it would be enough for me as an amateur. I could die happy if just once, someone looked at one of my pictures and said: “Wow, that looks just like a _______!” (Insert favorite photographer’s name here).

Alas, however, I will never duplicate the vision of any of my idols.

Then again, in college a professor once asked my if I could play “like” Buddy Rich (I’m a drummer). I said no, but then, Buddy Rich couldn't play “like” me, either …

Cheers y’all

David

PS: for what it’s worth, I can’t ever get the spell check on the forums to work. But I can see all of the gallery pictures. Aren’t computers wonderful?

As far a copying someone's style, it happens all the time in commercial work.
I remember several years ago when Keith Carter was all the rage with his selective focus images. Lo and behold, over the next few years in PDN or cmmercial photo annuals you would see a whole host of photographers
using the same basic style or technique.

There are only so many "styles" out there. Every person (well 99%) who ever bought a view camera and was not using it for studio work wanted to go out and be the next Ansel Adams. I could name at least a dozen well known photographers who I would say copy Adams style and vision. It does not bother galleries and museums who sell or collect their work. But then again did not Adams simply copy the style of Jackson, and O'Sullivan?

As far as the vision thing goes, why is Adam's vision or conceptual framework any more valid then mine even if they are similar or we photograph the same subject matter?

I used to concern myself with such things. I would go out and shoot, come back and print and think, someone else has already done it. Well guess, what? It has all been done before. You may not have seen everything in a gallery or magazine but I can gaurantee you that somewhere someone has thought of it and photographed it already.

But I really don't care about such things any more. I photograph what interests me or moves me. I may even (GOD HELP ME) go out and buy some velvia and shoot slot canyons and get them published for the obligatory every other month slot canyon feature in some magazine. And even though I place my tripod in the deep holes left by thousands of others, my images might just be considered to have the style, the vision that makes them worthy to be framed and put up on someone's wall.

mark said:

This is not necessarily true. About a year ago a photog sued a record company over the cover of a CD. The company requested he do the cover. When he did they did not like his price for the final image so chose not to buy. The CD came out and the cover looked very similar to the original artists concept. The judge ruled in his favor because the image could be confused with the work of the original artist. Side by side the images were very, very similar but there were differences as well. In the end the amount of similarities out wieghed the differences, and the original artist had a right to the concept which he came up with.

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As I know in music world, there are some rules which say next: It is allowed to use few tacts of one composition in another composition, and if that established amount of "stealing" are not broken, whole new composition will be considered as original composition. So, if everything else is already photographed, what is amount of "copying", or what is allowed to be copied from one photograph (location, composition, lightning, colour style/shades of gray style, posing...), and if nothing else in new photograph is copied, that new photograph can be considered as original photograph?

I am saying(asking) this, not to through small doors establish right of copying, but to see if there could be establish rules which would clear this issue. Is that possibile at all?

I have written about this already, in several contexts. In the hopes that my writing might be useful to others, I append it here.

This is from a letter written to someone who was in a workshop that Paula and I taught in Prague many years ago. It was written in response to his concern over being overly influenced by our photographs.

In response to your concerns about your making photographs that you think might be similar to mine, a word (words, really), about influence and a period of making photographs that appear imitative. As one sees photographs from other photographers or has experience of art in other mediums that touches one deeply and feels "right"—in accord with one’s own being—the influence of that work on one’s photographs may be strongly in evidence. That is nothing to be worried about or concerned with. As life continues, one will have many experiences of seeing photographs from other photographers, and other artworks from workers in other mediums, as well as having many emotionally charged experiences unmediated by art. All of these experiences will have an influence that will merge with the original strong influence. As time passes, the original strong influence, if it is one that truly did speak to you, may remain in evidence, though in increasingly diluted form, as it merges with everything else that occurs in your life. If this original strong influence was not truly in accord with your being, its traces in your own work will gradually disappear. In neither case are influences anything to worry about or to try to get over with quickly. As part of the fabric of one’s life, they come and they go in their own good time. Because many experiences are common to all humanity, influences are to be embraced, for they lead us more quickly to a finding of our true selves. As I said in On Teaching Photography, "A period of imitative work is not to be feared. Everyone is unique. With a broad foundation in the medium and with continued work over a period of time one’s uniqueness will emerge."

Of course, there does exist the possibility (witness the many artists and photographers whose whole career consists in doing imitative work) that one will get "stuck" and never grow beyond an early strong influence. That is nothing to fear either. If an early and strong influence enables one to get a far greater pleasure in making one’s art, that is also something to be thankful for, is it not, even if one’s art does not expand the medium or our understanding of the world. After all, how many artists, of the total of all artists, in any age, truly make a lasting contribution?

Michael A. Smith

haris said:

As I know in music world, there are some rules which say next: It is allowed to use few tacts of one composition in another composition, and if that established amount of "stealing" are not broken, whole new composition will be considered as original composition. So, if everything else is already photographed, what is amount of "copying", or what is allowed to be copied from one photograph (location, composition, lightning, colour style/shades of gray style, posing...), and if nothing else in new photograph is copied, that new photograph can be considered as original photograph?

I am saying(asking) this, not to through small doors establish right of copying, but to see if there could be establish rules which would clear this issue. Is that possibile at all?

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There is the legal issue, and then the artistic issue. Sometimes they collide. John Cage's _Cheap Imitation_ (1969) is a good example. He changed all dynamics and used I-Ching to change some of the notes of a Satie work called 'Socrate' because of copyright problems. The phrasing all had to stay the same because the choreography had already been done. In a photograph this might be analogous to changing the crop and printing it a little darker/lighter.

The legal definition of copying and the artistic one are two different things. In the Cage example they collided. He found a solution.

Everyone has influences. I wouldn't worry so much about it unless you feel like you are being smothered by your own.

Best,

Will

Jim Chinn said:

I may even (GOD HELP ME) go out and buy some velvia and shoot slot canyons and get them published for the obligatory every other month slot canyon feature in some magazine.

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Don't worry Jim, once you get over the initial shock of color, you will do just fine.

As for the slot canyons, been there, done that myself.

This is my homage to Michael Kenna's homage to Hiroshi Sugimoto. It was taken at Arromanches sixty years after D-day, and sums up my half-digested take on Kenna's and Sugimoto's ways of dealing with extended time. The visual reference is clear; the conceptual reference less so, but a caption can solve that. The personal references, to Bernal, to my brother serving in Blair's Wars, to my own experiences as a peacetime soldier, need careful explication, but not to myself.

Is this plagiarism? Only if I deny the connections.

haris said:

As I know in music world, there are some rules which say next: It is allowed to use few tacts of one composition in another composition, and if that established amount of "stealing" are not broken, whole new composition will be considered as original composition. So, if everything else is already photographed, what is amount of "copying", or what is allowed to be copied from one photograph (location, composition, lightning, colour style/shades of gray style, posing...), and if nothing else in new photograph is copied, that new photograph can be considered as original photograph?

I am saying(asking) this, not to through small doors establish right of copying, but to see if there could be establish rules which would clear this issue. Is that possibile at all?

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I honestly do not know. I guess you would have to make a venn diagram, and start listing the differences and similarities between two images. Not really worth the hassel in my book. I do not understand the desire to go out and shoot what someone else has, or in the style of someone else. Granted, if I am facing Half Dome, and the light is right I will take the shot. Does that mean I am copying Ansel the great? I don't think so.

blansky said:

Granted, if I am facing Half Dome, and the light is right I will take the shot. Does that mean I am copying Ansel the great? I don't think so.

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Yes, Mark. But, what if after that, people who see your photograph says it is copy of Adams photograph, even if you had no intention to copy him?

Example, talented young photograher, maybe just started photography, without many books or photographs (or even web sites) analyzed, go and shoot b/w portrait of man with cigarette in hands, smoke of cigarette raise up, etc... And after that, maybe even years later, he discover Jousuf Karsh or someone accuse him for copying of Karsh...

I was in Vermont for a few days when I first saw this thread. Now that I am home, I can add my 2 cents. I am not sure who was first, but AA and Weston both photographed the artist Jose Clemente Orozco in almost the exact same fashion, close up head shot and glasses. When shouts of plagiarism sounded, both artists just laughed.

We all have our idols, artists we want to imitate. The usual suspects are legion. To make a fine print as good as AA, Weston, etc, is no small feat. I was proud when I reached that level.

Many are content and happy to stay there which is all well and good. But to really grow as an artist, you need to ask yourself, how do I "NOT" make a picture that looks like everyone elses or our idols. How do I approach a subject that has been rehashed over and over again, with my own personal point of view? Once you start asking those questions in your head, you are truly on your way to becoming an artist.

Here is a little shameless plug of an essay I wrote about a experience I had;

Dead Link Removed

I wonder if anyone besides me has had the experience of making a photograph... and after the fifteenth print, or so, gone back to that specific spot - to correct something ... the angle of the sun wasn't quite "right" -- a contrail in the sky had gone unnoticed ... if only the leaf pattern around the trunk of that tree was slightly different ... and found that they could not even come CLOSE to what they had done before. I can't copy my OWN work outside of a copy stand.

Are we worrying that someone else might accuse us of plagiarism? That is impossible to prevent. We would have to have an intimate knowledge of ... HOW MANY works ? ... far more that it would be possible to retain. We can set the self-timer, toss the camera into the air, catch it when it comes down after the shutter trips ... and there will be *someone* to accuse us for plagiarizing someone else's work.

Many moons ago, I wrote some poetry, Upon presenting it ... I was immediately accused of copying Ezra Pound's works. I had NEVER read any of his works ... I was totally unfamiliar with them. That furor led me to my local library. I have to admit, my style WAS somewhat similar .... But I HAD not - could NOT have copied anything.

I think that worrying about what others might think is totally unproductive. Take the damn photograph as you see fit... and let the accusers spin around as fast as they wish.... You KNOW you did not plagiarize - and that is all that really matters.

TRY to do something no one else has done before? - Sounds good to me. LIMITING yourself artificially to only that? - Expressly for avoiding a false accusation?

I would do very little photography under those limitations.

The thing that never fails to amaze me, is that I can take a shot that I think is original (theoretically not too difficult with street shooting) and the a few weeks or months later I add another copy or two to my collection of Picture Post Magazines and find a similar shot from the 50's

Anyone who saw the magazine when it was first published could be forgiven for thinking I ripped it off, but in all honesty I see the originals for the first time after I've shot mine ... spookie :confused:

Haris,
Let's face it nothing is really new, in photography, just vantage points. Yosemite is associated with one person. In the photo world you mention Yosemite and Ansel's face pops into your mind. If you see a shot of Half Dome your mind also conjures up ansel's photographs. Especially if you have never seen it in real life. Your schema of BW photographs of Half Dome is based solely on those AA shots you have seen. BY seeing the picture I took of Half dome your mind makes an automatic connection between the shot you see and the famous shots of Half Dome. Your subconcious automatically compares the two shots to spark recognition of the subject in front of you. Your brain clicks off the recognizable points. From there your concious self takes the information and vocalizes the connection. "Aw that is Half dome". Your brain then seeks to further build your schema by comparing the two photographs. you say:"didn't Ansel take that shot?" Depending how familiar you are with the AA image you may see the differences and notice that it is a different image of the same subject. If you are not overly familiar with the image your schema, after clicking off the recognizable points may connect the image as a mere copy of AA's image of half dome. The same could be said for the Karsh-esq image. What you see is based on your, the viewer's, schema of that pose. The only way to know if that similarity was intended is to ask.

The reason for this thread was based on people copying a style. Following a Photo-fad. Maybe the fad of the day is a stark red background. One person does it and another person sees it and shoots a magazine image with a stark red background; or a person sees a slot canyon image with a tumble weed perched on a ledge, and goes to Arizona to take a similar picture because they saw one in a magazine. After giving this a lot of thought I realized that there are instances where someone may have shot an image totally independant, and ignorant of the original photographer but viewers label the image as a copy because they connected the image with what they have seen.

The study of prehistory has made this mistake many times when trying to explain the progression of new technologies and skills from culture to another. The advent of fired ceramics were once thought to have come from one part of the world. Then folks realized that cultures had invented the technology at different times. You really can't say someone invented the fired ceramic cooking vessel first, because that implies everyone else copied the invention. Considering the age when this happened people did not have pan continental communications. The usage of fired ceramics can be traced as it moved from one place to another. In this instance, like a photo-fad, a person learned the skill and used it as well as passed it on to someone else. The person who had no contact with the path of usage could honestly be considered to have invented the fired ceramic cooking vessel. There is an anthropological/archaeological term for this that escapes me right now but I feel it does apply. What people see as copying may be so, but it could also be the a case where the person actually came up with it on their own. See this thread
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
I had an idea and stumbled onto a similar idea. In fact my idea was damn near identical. I never saw this guy's work nor anything like what I was planning, but there it was. My idea, that I had come up with. If someone who had seen this work before they would have had a schema and my idea would have triggered that schema. That person might have thought I was copying, when in fact I was not.

Sorry this was so long. Hope it makes sense