Would You Copycat an Image???

[Roger Hicks]

Roger,
Yea, when I go to the most popular spots, there can be a crowd of folks standing elbow to elbow.
But that's when I don't even unload my gear.
What really bugged me was how he waited until I left, then used the exact same foreground as myself.
He claimed to be a full-time pro, so I'll assume he'll sell some of it.
Why should I care?
Maybe it was just because he was a filmophobe!
DT

Dear Dave,

Yeah, I'll go for the last sentence.

Bit 'pro' is widely misunderstood. When I lived in California, if I said I'd written/illustrated several books, a common reply was, 'Have you had any of them published...?'

Cheers,

R.

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I would, but only as a learning tool. I have original ideas of my own.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Imitation is also not to be confused with copycating. Joachim DuBellay, a French Renaissance poet, had the best metaphor for it: to imitate is like to eat. You consume, you absorb what the others have done before you (in his case the Roman poets), and this nourishes you, gives you nutrition and energy.

Compare for instance "Chattanooga, Tennessee" in the thumbnail below with the following by Diane Arbus: http://www.studio-international.co.uk/studio-images/arbus/82364761_b.asp

I now believe that Robert Frank taught the Americans how to take pictures of themselves.

 

[mabman]

I don't have a problem with it personally - I don't live in Paris, New York, LA, London, a place with farm troubles/famine, or a war zone, so if someone said a photo of mine looked like HCB, Garry Winogrand, Dorothea Lange, Robert Cappa, James Nachtwey, et al, I would be extremely flattered. In fact it would mean the hours I've spent browsing around looking at photos I like would have rubbed off (or my Canadian city is in the middle of a civil war, but that's highly unlikely)

 

[patrickjames]

The extreme vast majority of the photography world is composed of copycats. Look around you. Do your own thing. Photograph what interests you and in time the world will be interested too if you have talent and the photographs show it. Otherwise you are just another wanna be. I have had one rule in my photographic life and that is if I thought I had seen something before I just passed it by.

Patrick