Whose work is it when it's someone else's idea?

Bill Burk · Mar 18, 2014

When I was just out of school, I hung around with some artists...

So occasionally an idea would spring from someone's mind like, "Hey look, I'm compact".

So I take the picture, but... whose picture is it really? I always figured it wasn't my idea, so it isn't my picture.

(see the Galleries... Compact)

The image is a scan of a dupe slide, so literally it is a print.

Tom1956 · Mar 18, 2014

Well, I suppose if Steve Jobs was answering the question, I suppose he'd have to say Steve Wozniak. If an "artist" answers it, it's anybody's guess.

markbarendt · Mar 18, 2014

I'd say it is your work.

You weren't paid to take the shot, develop the film, store it, or give him/her a copy were you?

He/She is not identifiable.

That doesn't mean they aren't due something if it became a big commercial image, that made you some money. Maybe lunch and a thank you.

jcc · Mar 18, 2014

markbarendt said:
I'd say it is your work.

You weren't paid to take the shot, develop the film, store it, or give him/her a copy were you?

He/She is not identifiable.

That doesn't mean they aren't due something if it became a big commercial image, that made you some money. Maybe lunch and a thank you.

And if someone just acts out the image and takes a new photo, and that became a huge success instead of yours, do they still owe you lunch?

As for the OP's question, didn't Sherrie Levine address this in After Walker Evans?

LJH · Mar 18, 2014

If I take a shot of Yosemite, does Ansel own it?

jcc · Mar 18, 2014

I think that's why some say landscape photography isn't "art"—more of a trophy shot (at least that's what they tell me).

Ghostman · Mar 18, 2014

There is very little that is original. Life and the maelstrom in which we exist is a result of and dependent on everything at the same time, always, everywhere. The fact that you bring something into existence, that you somehow caused it to materialize does not make it exclusively yours, you just performed one part of an intricately complex set of events and ideas.

The same goes for anything anyone else created. All things are related to each other in some form of thread or conversation, the inspiration had to come from somewhere. Nothing is ever yours.

snapguy · Mar 18, 2014

laws

Take a gander at the copyright laws.

removed account4 · Mar 18, 2014

hey bill
i know exactly what you mean.
i have some photographs where i was not the camera operator
but i directed the person and i was the subject ( there was no self timer or shutter release )
is it mine or someone else's work?
...
or if your pal overhears you talking and before you make the photographs, your buddy
( who hasn't a creative bone in hopis body ) does what you thought up, and sells it
and gets the glory.

regarding the ansel a.
he owns the tripod holes, but it is a completely different photograph.

Tony Egan · Mar 18, 2014

I have been working on a theme/series for a while only to open a book today to find someone else has done it 40 years ago, and much better! His looked like what I imagined mine could be! None of us want to be a pale imitation or a "copyist" but it's all part of the discovery and discarding on the way to creating something unique.

gone · Mar 18, 2014

If you did it first, it's yours. People "borrow" all the time. Painters/artists run into this all the time, photographers usually less. An idea is just an idea, but I'm referring to actual works that inspire other works, or sometimes downright copying. The latter is not good.

Way Back When, Robert Rauschenberg exhibited something called "Erased de Kooning", a drawing of de Kooning's that had been given to him by the artist. In the video (short) below he discusses his inspiration for this. What is unsaid is that Bill de Kooning was, and is, such a giant in the art world that Rauschenberg was probably trying to erase de Kooning's work from his mind because it was unduly influencing his own work. You have to be your own man, or woman. Like someone once said, nothing grows beneath the shade of a great oak. You have to step out into the light and do your own thing.

http://www.artbabble.org/video/sfmoma/robert-rauschenbergs-erased-de-kooning-drawing

removed account4 · Mar 18, 2014

but often times, like tony just posted, people have no idea
that they borrowed to begin with.

i imagine it is like the biblical verse: there's nothing new under the sun ..
but i also imagine we all bring out own perspective, genetic, and personal
experiences to everything so even if someone borrows something
they really arent.
it reminds me of what mick jagger said when he heard devo's version
of ( i can't get no ) satisfaction ... ( im paraphrasing ) ..
thats the beat version i ever heard ...

David Brown · Mar 18, 2014

Tony Egan said:
I have been working on a theme/series for a while only to open a book today to find someone else has done it 40 years ago, and much better! His looked like what I imagined mine could be! None of us want to be a pale imitation or a "copyist" but it's all part of the discovery and discarding on the way to creating something unique.

There is a school of thought among musicians that no composer or improvisor ever really creates anything totally new. That everything "created" is a result of what has been heard in the past. The influence is usually subliminal or unconscious, but it can also be quite overt - a deliberate act. In any event, it's all a recycling of already experienced aural material.

For visual artists, I believe it works much the same way. How can one "see" an image they wish to make, if it is not based on something (or many things) already seen? Even our dreams and hallucinations have some basis in reality. The challenge is to take the building blocks from one's prior experience and make an image that expresses your vision, even if it is made up of things already seen. It's one thing to go to Yosemite and look for Ansel's tripod holes to re-create a photograph you've already seen. And there's really nothing wrong with that. We learn by studying and copying from the best. But the artist will visit Yosemite and make a photograph that expresses their reaction to the landscape and their vision. If someone else saw something similar years ago, oh well.

markbarendt · Mar 18, 2014

Good artists copy, great artists steal.
Pablo Picasso

...

SuzanneR · Mar 18, 2014

Would have to concur with the last two posts,nothing is truly new, and the bests artists steal liberally from everywhere. Not sure the "idea" can be copyrighted, but your expression of it... your work, your painting, your writing, your photograph or whatever can be. And when you work with a collaborator, then I think assigning the credit to both is probably the right thing to do.

removed account4 · Mar 18, 2014

markbarendt said:
...

lol

and i thought it was banksy that said that.

http://www.jamesmaybe.com/blog/tag/banksy/

BrianShaw · Mar 18, 2014

Bill Burk said:
... So I take the picture, but... whose picture is it really? I always figured it wasn't my idea, so it isn't my picture. ...

Their idea, but your picture. For copyright and compensation purposes, you own the picture. For bragging rights, they originated the idea.

dpurdy · Mar 18, 2014

I think personal interpretation can be the work of an artist and can be claimed by the artist. I think credit should be given though. You can go into a beautiful English garden and take beautiful photos of shrubs and trees and garden compositions but you are interpreting someone else's art so they should be given credit for your inspiration. You see all the time photographers photographing things that were made beautiful by someone else. Flower arrangements and architecture, beautiful models, food stands at the farmer's market and any other sort of thing that someone already tried to make beautiful. Along comes a photographer and takes a photo of it. Every person you photograph made themselves look like that. interpreting things and developing a craft to interpret things is probably all an artist ever does.

MartinCrabtree · Mar 18, 2014

Even though it was someone elses idea it's unlikely they'd execute the concept the same as you did.

cliveh · Mar 18, 2014

Bill, it is definitely your work. Every artist is influenced by others. If for instance you set out to copy AA and even planted your tripod in holes near where he took his shots, your images would still be yours. Continue doing this again and again and the pictures arent a copy of someones ideas, but your own interpretation.

Bill Burk · Mar 18, 2014

Tony Egan said:
I have been working on a theme/series for a while only to open a book today to find someone else has done it 40 years ago, and much better! His looked like what I imagined mine could be! None of us want to be a pale imitation or a "copyist" but it's all part of the discovery and discarding on the way to creating something unique.

Ouch. My family bought two copies (I bought it for my dad and he bought it for me.) of James Balog's book about trees, because he did exactly what I would have wanted to do. He rappelled and photographed every square inch of the tree I used to live near, the Alonzo Stagg tree... while I only climbed about thirty-feet up a nearby tree to get a few sectional shots partway up.

Bill Burk · Mar 18, 2014

I've got an idea. Every photograph has a story. I'll just tell the story as it is. If the inspiration was someone else's, then I'll explain it. Just like I've done here.

That was too easy.

Tom1956 · Mar 19, 2014

Mozart is arguably king. He had no top 40, no recordings, and probably very limited esposure to other music than his own. He was largely "uncontaminated" with tunes he heard by others, like a nuisance tune you can't get out of your head, today. For the most part, his music was straight from the horse's (God's) mouth, and he just wrote it down as God "dictated" it.

omaha · Mar 19, 2014

I'm an unapologetic thief when it comes to anything visual. I've fell in love with 19th century French paintings a few years ago, and this summer's project involves about a half a dozen shoots inspired by them. Not literal re-creations, but I'm sure someone familiar with the original might see a bit of an echo in what I'm doing. Or at least I hope so.

Toffle · Mar 19, 2014

Last year (or the year before...) I did a series of photographs where I re-imagined some Rodin sculptures with wooden artists mannequins. I have to admit that I was blissfully unaware of Man Ray's "Mr. and Mrs. Woodman" work, but I had seen the models used by other photographers. I also must admit that most of the photos were not as good as I hoped, but a few were very evocative and I am proud to call them "my" work.

Whose work is it when it's someone else's idea?

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