When Is It More Than Just Inspiration ??? (long one)

InaGlo

InaGlo

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I just saw rwottn's thread about the use of Selective Colouring and it reminded me of a recent episeode that Im rather haunted by, heres my little story...

Some time ago, I saw a beautiful image by a guy called Patrick Parenteau, a black & white pic of a model with a red umbrella, nails & lips, it stayed in my head because Id seen other black & white pictures using red umbrellas & I loved the effect of it. So, when one of my nails comps came up, my theme was 'Singing In The Rain' I just knew I wanted to use a black & white image with a red umbrella & I recalled Patrick's classy image.

Inspired by what I remembered I created red nails but added clear tips & added 'water droplets' (gel). I bought a red umbrella, a treble cleff diamante necklace and a black suit for my model, we sprayed water on the umbrella. I positioned her near the window, got the reflector out & I started snapping.

I was sooo very thrilled with the results of the shoot. Id got the lighting to fall just right on the hands, and blown up to A3 the picture looked fantastic. The competition loomed, but instead of feeling excited, I started to get a strange nagging feeling in my gut about my picture not being really an original idea & that I was 'ripping off' Patrick.

I searched and searched the site where I had initially seen the image and when I found it I just sat opened mouthed & stared. Lo & behold my own pic was virtually a carbon copy of Patrick's. I couldnt believe I had practically just replicated his work. With 2 days to go to the comp, I felt sick inside & I decided I just couldnt enter without speaking to Patrick about it. I thought he would either see me as such small fry he wouldnt care, or he could be flattered, or he would scream 'artistic licence' and tell me Id better not use it.
Luckily for me, Patrick was a star, he said he was flattered that I felt the need to contact him about it, to go ahead with the competition, and to let him know how I did.

The judging in the comp was a fiasco, they brought in a rookie judge at the last minute who was also my rival on the circut. I lost out by one point to what I (& others) considered a dreadful picture, both in its content and technicality (it had the worst PSing Ive ever seen in print).
I wanted to lodge a complaint but decided not to, as I never felt comfortable that my image was an original idea, and silly as it sounds my concience left me feeling as if I was somehow being punished for using it.
The whole episode has made me aware of the fine line between being inspired and actually copying. Its a shame because I see this picture as one of my best and yet I dont feel able to use or show it.
Myself, I learned a very valuable lesson with this picture.

So, Im wondering, have any of you ever used anyone else's idea whether it be subconciously or on purpose. How do you feel about these things? How would you feel about someone using 'your idea'
Myself, Im still at an early learning stage and I look to the pro's for poses and lighting effects but, Im also now very concious of the artistic content of other people's images & purposly shy away from admiring it 'too much'.
I want my ideas to be exactly that 'my ideas'

I guess Im trying to steer clear of other people's work on purpose now. While I know a lot of model shots have 'been done before' at least working this way, if my ideas ever run close to someone else work Ill be able to hold my head up and know that its nothing more than pure coincidence!

What thinks you?
 
Photographers in past decades have had it 'easier' in so far as, with photography being a relatively new thing there has been a wealth of uncovered subjects. As time goes on this is becoming less so and photography becomes more about your personal view of a subject. If you think we have it tough what about musicians/songwriters who have many thousands of years worth of material to worry about and all music is now recycled in some part.

In this specific case you made the shot from memory, you didn't have the original in front of you and you did worry about copying someone elses work. A year or so ago I had a big argument with a guy on Deviant Art called P51 who had posted a digital painting saying look at me see what I've done. I thought it looked familiar and I said so, he later claimed to have done it by hand as an 'homage' but by that time I'd found the original painting he had copied, not only copied but it was a pixel perfect copy ie he had simply 'painted' over the original. My point with this is to say that there is a huge difference between plagiarism and setting out to replicate an original and that difference is in the intent.

Stick to your principles but don't worry that what you are doing is not original, nothing ever is anymore.
 
From a commercial sense, as long as you are not selling it, I wouldnt necessarily worry. There are copyright issues regarding doing this kind of thing, and from your description you could have falled foul of this.

From an artistic sense, then yes you could argue that you are not creating art. Howover, its up to what you feel when you look at the picture. If you look at the picture and get that nagging feeling, then I guess you have a problem!
 
Steep's right drawing the comparison with music. There are only 12 notes in an octave of western music and from that handful of notes countless thousands of musical pieces have been written. If you sit at the joanna picking out a few notes of a new composition, you'll never really know how unique it is or how much you're subconsciously being influenced by, or even copying some phrase you've heard somewhere before... until someone tells you.

It's great to be influenced and motivated by the work of others. The fact that you fretted about this particular pic and went to the pains you did, shows I think that you're not likely to overstep the line. ;)
 
i had a brilliant idea of a lightup globe for a competition(modern world or something), seems coldplay got there first with an album cover though...
 
dunno who said it but I've heard it said several times "There is no such thing as an original idea"
 
I really wouldn't worry about it Gloria - the fact is that you created the lighting setup and went to the trouble of putting the water droplets on the umbrella, etc. You said yourself that you used Patrick Parenteau's image as inspiration - unfortunately you seem to have remembered it too well!

Cedric and Steep are right though - there probably isn't a single chord progression that hasn't already been written! (Case in point, I sat down with my guitar and wrote a fairly good heavy riff one afternoon, developed it... and then found out that I'd more-or-less written 'Hangar 18' by Megadeth - and this was a month or two before it had even been released!)

I know the image you're on about though and to call it striking is doing it an injustice! But at least you can still learn from the experience - what you would do differently, etc. But at the end of the day, you've produced a photo that you are proud of... so well done! :thumbs:
 
Good thread.

This is something I have been thinking of lately too. I used to go out with a photographer who used to decry anyone who saw a shot he was taking and tried something similar, citing 'shot stealing' etc.

I don't mind, personally. If someone sees me taking a shot and wants to emulate it, I'd personally be flattered.

You see Glo, that's where the difference is...your intention was to create a shot influenced by someone elses shot. You didn't set out to basically copy someone elses work and make money from it. That would be wrong.

As CT says, the fact that you worried and had the conscience to check with the original photographer speaks volumes.

Some people *can* get a bit precious over their own shots, the chap I used to shoot with was testament to that.

Like has been said though, there are that many people out there now, and millions upon millions of photographs, that the chances of us recreating another persons shot are getting greater and greater. Don't let it worry you though.

There's a big difference IMO between being influenced by someone, or even trying to recreate a similar shot of someones, and deliberately plagiarising someone's work, to pass off as your own.

You fall into the former, chuck ;)
 
Aww bless Marcel ... thanks to everyone else for your kind words too :)
My bro said similar things to me but my guilty feelings lay in the fact that this was no grab shot, or landmark for all to view and interpret as they saw fit .... I was influenced by this mans work, his (or the stylists) creation, and though I hadnt meant copy it to the detail, it turned out the impression it made on me meant that I had.

To be honest, I was absolutely beside myself when I looked at his picture again, and if he hadnt got back to me the night before the competition, I couldnt have entered. For the comp, we have to write a step-by-step of how we create our entries, including products used, credit to the photographer etc. I made sure that when I credited myself as photographer, I also wrote that I had been inspired by the work of Patrick Parenteau. Again, I couldnt have entered otherwise.

I dont know how people can openly copy other peoples work and pass it off as their own because I choked on every compliment I got on that picture at the show. I felt undeserving, as if I had a guilty secret ... It felt more like a joint effort between myself AND Patrick ... I should be so lucky eh! :lol:

I agree its hard to be original these days and indeed Ive created nail pics myself in the past, come across others virtually the same & thought 'why the cheeky so & so', then Ive looked at the date and found they were actually created first, lol!
 
InaGlo said:
PMSL!!!!!


........ but I was sitting on your shoulder when you did ;)
Click to expand...

...and there was me thinking it was a monkey on my back! ;)
 
I plagarise like hell - a good idea is a good idea - I think if it really bothers you and your image is (like you've implied) a virtual carbon-copy, then credit the original photographer with the idea if you feel uncomfortable with it.

Personally, I like to think that although I may use other people's ideas, my interpretation is sufficiently different as to make it an original peice.
 
Would you be willing to share the shot with us InaGlo, or would you not feel comfortable with that?

For inpsperation purposes only of course :D
 
Inaglo

I took this shot when flying over Speyside earlier this year:

IMG_0518_Pine_Forest.jpg


After I landed I went to my favourite coffee shop in Aviemore, the mountain cafe and picked up a book called "Shadows of Heaven". This book contains aerial pictures taken by celebrated Scottish photographer Patricia Macdonald in the 1980's. To my surprise there was an almost identical shot in her book. Spooky!

I now need to get in the air when Scotland freezes to get this shot that Patricia took :lol::

PGP_72.9.jpg
 
I think it was Count Basie who once said, "average composers borrow, great ones steal".

In this case, the fact that you got sooooo close to the shot that inspired you is no different to setting out with the same intentions but getting something that looked totally different. His vision and yours were just very similar, it's not a big deal and the fact that you credited him with the original idea was both moral and gracious.

The big thing to take away from this is that you had the knowhow and talent to realise the vision, regardless of whos it was in the first place. :clap:
 
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