I had a very interesting thing happen the other day. I went to my mail box, the physical one, and on the cover of a publication was an image that stopped me in my tracks. So I went inside and showed it to my wife whose eyes got very large upon seeing it. “How can they copy you like that?” she cried. She was rather upset at it all and I thought it was funny. Why?
Well the deal is that the cover shot was what appears to be a poor imitation of one of my images. How can I say that? Well it goes as follows: I have a photo in my folio that I produced a little over a year ago where the same subject, but not same exact person, is standing in essentially the same spot, facing the same way, posed in a very similar manner, shot with the same angle of view, from the same perspective only without my better and more dramatic lighting. Big deal - it’s a co-inky-dink. I’m not so sure.
Ya see I know the publication. I know the editor who assigned the photo. The editor has seen my folio. The person who made the image may not be fully aware of me and my work but the editor is. I’m not sure whose idea it was but the person in charge had to have known in the back of their mind that the image was familiar.
Or it was intentional but not as a “copy” so much as an inspiration. I get that. I have lots of inspirational images that float around in my head. Inspiration is important. I never tried to imitate anyones work let alone copy an image. I did and do look at other peoples work and learn from it. As I’ve said before I will sometimes think to myself “What would Joel Sartore/Albert Watson/Joey Terill/some other cool photog/ do with this complete mess of a situation?” Then I’d put my twist on that bit of inspiration.
Truth be told I’m just about to go to a shoot that was inspired by someone else’s work. Well not a single image, more like 2-3 different ones from different photographers, and what I’m going to be doing will not look like the shots that gave me the “Ah-HA!.” Similar kind of location but, different lighting, different subject, different mood and my own twist on top of it all. That will end up being a shot that is mine and not one where you can say “Mmm, didn’t Whatshisname shoot something like this?”
Still for the photog who may or may not have been inspired by my image: either way I’m flattered.
Jonathan,
I've had the same thing happen on a few occasions, and it's kind of irritating! Given, I'm no pro, but I've had friends do this, which is almost the worst. My reaction inside tends to be - - can't you scope out different locations, rather than squatting on all of my footwork? They should have given you the job, in the first place, rather than paying a copycat to do it.
Even worse, was when a major local newspaper just took one of my images and cut out my watermark. That was sleazy.
Peter
Posted by: Peter Gibbons | June 02, 2010 at 11:31 AM