When does imitation become plagiarism?

haris said:

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?

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THen you still made the photo, and they did not. Next I suppose we should stop making portraits because we're all ripping-off Nadar and Cameron, who thought of aiming the camera at people before we did.

This is a non-issue elevated to anxiety status by people who would rather worry about making photographs than actually make them. Talk about a defeatist attitude! Like most photo talk (esp about equipment), it is a way to feel like you are moving when you're actually sitting still, of talking about non-photography rather than photography.

If it looks like an Ansel, learn from that. What are the formal elements that make one photo an Adams and another a non-Adams? And which ones to do you yourself like regardless? Which are deliberate, which accidental?

Take it in stride, keep shooting.

Ansel was probably not aware of the richly detailed Western frontier scenes of Timothy O'Sullivan, Carleton Watkins and William Henry Jackson

bjorke said:

This is a non-issue elevated to anxiety status by people who would rather worry about making photographs than actually make them. Talk about a defeatist attitude! Like most photo talk (esp about equipment), it is a way to feel like you are moving when you're actually sitting still, of talking about non-photography rather than photography.

Take it in stride, keep shooting.

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That's it!!! That is what I meant to say. Well done, Bjorke!

bjorke said:

THen you still made the photo, and they did not. Next I suppose we should stop making portraits because we're all ripping-off Nadar and Cameron, who thought of aiming the camera at people before we did.

This is a non-issue elevated to anxiety status by people who would rather worry about making photographs than actually make them. Talk about a defeatist attitude! Like most photo talk (esp about equipment), it is a way to feel like you are moving when you're actually sitting still, of talking about non-photography rather than photography.

If it looks like an Ansel, learn from that. What are the formal elements that make one photo an Adams and another a non-Adams? And which ones to do you yourself like regardless? Which are deliberate, which accidental?

Take it in stride, keep shooting.

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Exactly. My point was that thinking and talking about "my my, did I copiyed someone" will at the end make us to stop photographing...

And regarding developing style: When I was at highschool I had homework to write a story, free style. So I did. I got 5 (in our school system 1 is the worst grade and 5 is best). Story was sience fiction. After few months I got simillar task. So I wrote another story. This time story was USA western ( I mean USA west at Doc Holliday times). It was purely mine story, like previous one, didn't copied anyone(as far I was aware at that time). Mine professor gave me grade 1. When I asked her why for first story I got 5 and for second I got 1, she said because both stories were written in simillar style. Not simillar stories, but simillar style!!!!. So, my professor supposed I should write one story in style of Dostojevski and second of Miller, third 0f Marques, forth of Eco, etc. Institutions...

haris said:

So, my professor supposed I should write one story in style of Dostojevski and second of Miller, third 0f Marques, forth of Eco, etc. Institutions...

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If your teacher could actually teach you to do this, she must have been awesome!

Will some mathematician here calculate all the possible combinations afforded by the use of 88 keys, and sundry different tempos and whatever other variables there are in piano music? I have no real proof, but I'l be more than willing to bet that human beings have not even come close to scratching the surface of all possibilities. Everthing has been played before? How can anyone prove that...?

Isaac Asimov in One,Two, Three ... Infinity calculated the possible combinations afforded by the use of 26 letters in the English alphabet, and ... I don't know how many punctuation marks ... and, given the space afforded by the average novel, calculated that there were more possible combinations than atoms in the entire universe.

Interesting -- "Everything has already been photographed". Not possible. I have crocuses emerging in my daughter's garden, out back, that did not exist yesterday. They were not - could not have been photographed. They did not exist.

I can't quite understand this "blind acceptance". There are an infinite number of elements in the simplest of photographs. How many leaves will have changed position in any landscape within the next minute? What cloud will be exactly the same... or light angle ... or atmospheric moisture, or human expression ...?

It seems to me that this issue has many different layers. 1. Are we talking about the content(subject matter) 2. the theme or 3 the style. None of these are simple answers. In the late 1970s I had a small show in London, it was reviewed by 3 or 4 publications, in one review the reviewer likened me to Stand because the social issues (theme) of my work, another compared me to Weggie because of the stark look, (style) and another said I needed a style and none of them seem to be very excited about my work. At the time I would have though my work was most influenced by Eugene Smith. I agree with Ed that the content or subject matter changes moment by moment. Several years ago someone put out a very nice book in which he revisited and photographed the great sites of the west including some of the classic views of Ansal Adams. Many of the spots and views no longer exist.

Because I have a social consciouse and I shoot the oppressed I am merely imitating Paul Stand and Dorothy Lang? If I shoot B&W and print high contrast am I imitating Weegie? If I shoot war in black and white with a Leica I am imitating Robert Capa or Eugene Smith? After 30 I think I have a little in each of them in my approch.



Paul

I truly believe that if you were able to find someone who has never seen a photograph in their life before, give them a camera and send them out to shoot a subject that people would say their work is influenced by a known photographer. It's human nature to pigeonhole to make senses of the environment.

Ed Sukach said:

Will some mathematician here calculate all the possible combinations afforded by the use of 88 keys, and sundry different tempos and whatever other variables there are in piano music? I have no real proof, but I'l be more than willing to bet that human beings have not even come close to scratching the surface of all possibilities. Everthing has been played before? How can anyone prove that...?

Interesting -- "Everything has already been photographed". Not possible. I have crocuses emerging in my daughter's garden, out back, that did not exist yesterday. They were not - could not have been photographed. They did not exist.

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When I said that I simplyfied things. But even if not, not any randomly played tone is music, it is just "insignificant" randomly played tone...

You know, I can draw human like childrens drawing(you know circle for head, lines for torso, arms, legs, nose and mouths, dots for eyes...), to pay some corrupted art critic to write in some art magazine that: "Haris made great simplified view of humans, stripping our kind to basics, excluding religion, souls, science, technology, moral or other 'unnatural invention' of humans brain, and finally force us to see us as we basically are..." or something like that. And to even get fame as artist and great money because of those words. But, am I an artist because of my drawing, and words of that art critic?

Maybe those particular crocouses emerging in yours daughter garden were never before photographed. But, I can bet, sometime in history of photograhy among billions of existing, or non existing, photographs, negatives, slides, glass plates, prints, digital "photographic" files, there is(were) one, if not more, photograph(s) of some crocuses emerging in someones garden...

I mean, how many macro photographs of one rose can be made before they start to repeat...

Regards

David H. Bebbington said:

If your teacher could actually teach you to do this, she must have been awesome!

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Unfortunatelly she couldn't, so I didn't become a writter

haris said:

When I said that I simplyfied things. But even if not, not any randomly played tone is music, it is just "insignificant" randomly played tone...
.... But, am I an artist because of my drawing, and words of that art critic?
Maybe those particular crocouses emerging in yours daughter garden were never before photographed. But, I can bet, sometime in history of photograhy among billions of existing, or non existing, photographs, negatives, slides, glass plates, prints, digital "photographic" files, there is(were) one, if not more, photograph(s) of some crocuses emerging in someones garden...
I mean, how many macro photographs of one rose can be made before they start to repeat...

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Well, son of a gun!!! Someone has a different approach to photography ... "seeing" the world in another way than I do!!

I am not so brittle that I am going to scream that MY approach is the "right one" and yours is not; I think both are equally as "valid". While I don't share your point of view, it IS of interest and worthy of consideration.

Of course all randomly placed notes will not be generally perceived as "music" ... but then the question becomes not, "Has all possible music been played already", but "Where are boundaries ... and what are the parameters that make "Music"? Those are infinitely more difficult than calculating the possible combinations and permutations of notes.

A case in point: Bela Bartok. At the first performance of his work, the audience became more and more "restless"; at a certain point, the pianist could not contain herself, and broke into uncontrollable laughter - so intense that she was unable to finish. Bartok was literally ridiculed out of the theater.
He was so devastated that he did not compose another note for some two years. That was then - "not music" - now he is certainly well respected as a Fine Classical Composer - and it IS "music" now. When I first experienced his work, I too could not relate to it; yet over time, like the taste of olives, I came to like it - to appreciate the "dissonance".

I am a romantic. Feeling and emotional content is paramount to me. That someone else may consider craftsmanship, or compliance to a strict set of rules, as being far more important to them is a fact of life; that is simply the way it is.

I personally (n.b. *personally*) revel in the "Joy of Differences". People - and their emotions - fascinate me. I try to "capture" - more than that -- in some way display those emotions - those "characteristics of self" to - for me and my memory - and to share them with others.

To me, each day is fresh and new. *Nothing* repeats itself ... and the images I experience are ALL "different". The sun does not rise in the same position each and every day - therefore the light is different...

It is possible that I am looking too closely - maybe all crocuses are "the same" - It would be possible to concentrate on similarities and categorize everything ... claim that images are "close enough" in similarity and place them in cubbyholes. I choose NOT to. I enjoy my vision, and my photography a whole lot more as a result.

Someone once asked me why I did photography. My answer, "I feel (see the "romantic" description") better when I do it than I do when I don't do it".

Another good question: "When does anyone deserve to be called an "Artist"?

In all truth - I don't CARE!!! Anyone can CALL themselves anything they damn well please, whether "deserved" or not. That has *NO* effect on me either way... so why SHOULD I care?

Ed, I simply don't understand why are you so angry?

haris said:

Ed, I simply don't understand why are you so angry?

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Angry?

There is a school of thought that proposes that there are three basal emotions, and only three - love, fear, and anger. Without these man cannot exist. Fear is necessary to avoid lethal situations, anger to start us in motion, love to ... I guess, primarily, procreation, but there is so much more. All the complex human emotions consist of different amounts of these three. "Hatred" is composed of fear and anger; remove one of these and hatred in its many forms, prejudice, discrimination, - is not possible.

What I feel most in photography is "passion". That, I would submit, is a combination of, admittedly, a *small* amount of anger (in the form of aggression?) and a great deal of love.

I dislike being misunderstood, or misquoted. That other people hold different opinions, or see the world from a different perspective is NO problem, they, and their opinions deserve equal consideration; they a just as "good" as I am. CONSIDERATION - that does not mean "blind acceptance".

Another thought, placing emotions aside for the moment, is that there is a need for a "Devil's Advocate" in nearly everything we do - see "Pro and Con."

I'm still trying to untangle the process where someone could offer, "Stringing tennis rackets is ART, but not Fine Art; therefore, photography is not ART, in any form".

Ed Sukach said:

Angry?

There is a school of thought that proposes that there are three basal emotions, and only three - love, fear, and anger. Without these man cannot exist. Fear is necessary to avoid lethal situations, anger to start us in motion, love to ... I guess, primarily, procreation, but there is so much more. All the complex human emotions consist of different amounts of these three. "Hatred" is composed of fear and anger; remove one of these and hatred in its many forms, prejudice, discrimination, - is not possible.

What I feel most in photography is "passion". That, I would submit, is a combination of, admittedly, a *small* amount of anger (in the form of aggression?) and a great deal of love.

I dislike being misunderstood, or misquoted. That other people hold different opinions, or see the world from a different perspective is NO problem, they, and their opinions deserve equal consideration; they a just as "good" as I am. CONSIDERATION - that does not mean "blind acceptance".

Another thought, placing emotions aside for the moment, is that there is a need for a "Devil's Advocate" in nearly everything we do - see "Pro and Con."

I'm still trying to untangle the process where someone could offer, "Stringing tennis rackets is ART, but not Fine Art; therefore, photography is not ART, in any form".

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Anything that requires skill acquired over time (sometimes combined with 'touch') can be called an 'art'. Sports is full of them: The art of bunting (baseball); the art of base-running (baseball); the art of goal-tending (football, lacrosse, etc.); the art of volleying (tennis). In this sense, photography is 'an art', and photographs products of 'art', but photographs are not 'works of art'.

Is that clearer?

The trouble lies in the myriad meanings of 'art'.

Ornello said:

Anything that requires skill acquired over time (sometimes combined with 'touch') can be called an 'art'.

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True, but what is your point? These CAN be called "Arts" but by doing so, do we in some way exclude others?

Baseball, Volleyball.... ad absurdum... differ in one significant way from other Arts: there is no tangible "product". There are no "Works' or "products" of baseball.

... In this sense, photography is 'an art', and photographs products of 'art', but photographs are not 'works of art'.

Is that clearer?

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No. I've read this twenty times ... and it doesn't get any better.

Photographs are products of art, but not works of art? There is some sort of difference between "Product of" and "Work of .."?

BTW .. did you read the page entitled "Art and Artists Today" at the Sweet Briar web site?

Ed Sukach said:

True, but what is your point? These CAN be called "Arts" but by doing so, do we in some way exclude others?

Baseball, Volleyball.... ad absurdum... differ in one significant way from other Arts: there is no tangible "product". There are no "Works' or "products" of baseball.



No. I've read this twenty times ... and it doesn't get any better.

Photographs are products of art, but not works of art? There is some sort of difference between "Product of" and "Work of .."?

BTW .. did you read the page entitled "Art and Artists Today" at the Sweet Briar web site?

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Yes, there is a difference between product of 'art' and 'work of art'. 'Art' in the first sense means 'skill'. A good volley in tennis is a product of art (skill). 'Work of Art' means an object made by those engaged in the fine arts. They're completely different senses of 'art'. I have made this as clear as I can.

A well-made piece of furiture is a product of the carpenter's 'art'. That does not make it a 'work of art'.

Ed,

Anger is in fact selfishnes. How? Well, simply: Things are not the way I want them to be. And that fact develop in me destructive emotions, or better to say urges. Only, those emotions can develop in real act of destruction, or can stay in form of emotion, but not express themselves as real act. But, anger is pure selfishnes and egoism, because something is not the way I want it to be.

haris said:

Ed,
Anger is in fact selfishnes. How? Well, simply: Things are not the way I want them to be. And that fact develop in me destructive emotions, or better to say urges. Only, those emotions can develop in real act of destruction, or can stay in form of emotion, but not express themselves as real act. But, anger is pure selfishnes and egoism, because something is not the way I want it to be.

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Great Giggling Golem Girls!!

Let's not engage on another "Dictionary Crusade".

Anger is not intrinsically destructive. If we see someone molesting a young girls, get really angry, go out and stop the molester by clocking him one - that is NOT destructive.

"Something is not the way I want it to be?" ... Are you saying that we should do nothing...? That if we try to improve ourselves, or work toward something "better", or try to correct a social injustice .. we are in some way "selfish and egotistical ... evil"?

Ornello said:

A well-made piece of furiture is a product of the carpenter's 'art'. That does not make it a 'work of art'.

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Isn't this a matter of opinion, and nothing else? Paintings and sculptures are each products of an art. What seperates them from say a Navajo rug, or a fine piece of one of a kind furniture, or even a photograph? Don't give a dictionary definition or the examples given in a dictionary because anyone with an eigth grade education should realize that the examples in the dictionary are neither all inclusive nor nearly complete.

Just for clarification-pictures of Navajo rugs
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"Anger is not intrinsically destructive. If we see someone molesting a young girls, get really angry, go out and stop the molester by clocking him one - that is NOT destructive."

It is still destructive(you make act of destrusction against other person), but that destructivness is socially justified, or justified by law. War is another (questionable) example.

"Something is not the way I want it to be?" ... Are you saying that we should do nothing...?

No, Im not talking that we do nothing. But, if for example I am waiting bus for an hour and I am get angry, it is because I don't want to stay at bus stop for an hour. I have selfish reason why I am angry. Angry is allways selfish.

That if we try to improve ourselves, or work toward something "better", or try to correct a social injustice .. we are in some way "selfish and egotistical ... evil"

Yes, we can change bad things which make us angry, but it is still selfish as we change things because they are not as we wanted them. I am not talking about "making good things". After all, if we (I mean every individual in human kind) are not egoistic by nature, and if that egoism don't force us to be better than others, or better then we are now, we will never improve ourselves. But, even if results are good, force which make us to do goods things is still selfishness and egoism. For example: I pay health care for poor child. Or, like in your example, Ed, save young girl from molester. I avoid public recognition for my act, stay anonymus. I feel good about it. My selfish reason is to feel good for doing good acts.

But, this is amateurish philosophy and not photography anymore, so I will not continue this discussion.

Regards

mark said:

Isn't this a matter of opinion, and nothing else? Paintings and sculptures are each products of an art. What seperates them from say a Navajo rug, or a fine piece of one of a kind furniture, or even a photograph? Don't give a dictionary definition or the examples given in a dictionary because anyone with an eigth grade education should realize that the examples in the dictionary are neither all inclusive nor nearly complete.

Just for clarification-pictures of Navajo rugs
Dead Link Removed

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If you read that statement, you'll see I leave room for it to be a 'work of art'. To say it is the product of the carpenter's 'art' means simply that it is a product requiring the skill of the carpenter.

Everything, yes everything has been photographed before but not by everyone yet .....