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Where do you draw the line on stealing images?


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I'm faced with a little bit of a dilemna. In a few weeks, I'm going to be

doing a shoot at my cousin's new martial arts studio so they have some promo

stuff. I've been visualizing the various shots and setups that I want to

do.<br><br>

Yesterday, I picked up <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lighting-Dramatic-

Portrait-Michael-Grecco/dp/0817442278/sr=8-1/qid=1168355545/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-

4178443-8470003?ie=UTF8&s=books" target="_blank">Michael Grecco's book on

portraiture</a>. In there is an example of a gym shot that I really really

like (boxer's back to camera, spot from camera left throwing shadow on the wall

to the subject right). He gives the full layout of how he lit this shot.

<br><br>

I would really like to set up something similar, but in my (overly?) conscious

attempt to not steal, I'm wondering how different I need to make my shot to

make it my own. It's an odd question, I realize that, but I'm interested in

hearing how others make that distinction between theft and "a different take on

the same idea". I probably wouldn't be so obsessed with ensuring that I don't

steal except that I'm going to be applying for an MFA program soon and don't

want to get knocked out when I'm genuinely trying to make a good image.

<br><br>I know on one end of the spectrum, there are those that believe that

there is no originality, and that everything you've done has been done before

in some way and that you're subconsciously pulling from that. I'm looking for

input on how you think through the process. When you see an image that you

really like, and then find yourself faced with the same set of parameters to

work in, what steps do you take or not take to ensure that you're not stealing?

<br><br>

On a side note, if you haven't seen Grecco's book, you should check it out. At

$20, it's a steal just for the back section that has a bunch of full page

shots. He also gives a number of examples of his photos with clear detail as

to how he lit it.

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He is giving you information on how to shoot a photo, using his knowledge, for the cost of the price of the book. If you were not one of the first 12 people who started using cameras to take photos in the 1800's then you probably have copied someone else's technique. I would take what you have learned from the book and build on it, using your own Ideas. I rip off Rembrandt's lighting all the time in my window portraits, and I don't send him a check.
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thanks guys. i'm starting to take all of this more seriously as i get closer to the time where i have important stuff riding on me doing things right, so i'm trying to make sure i stay on the straight and narrow. thanks for the input...
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"Copying" images is common in the worlds of art/photography. Mark Klett did it with his Rephotographic Survey Project (1977-79)where he copied 19th Century landscape images. Also, Richard Misrach did a series of photos of paintings http://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Paintings-Richard-Misrach/dp/1576871479

 

Restaging work is quite different than making a copy of someone elses images and then selling them as originals or as your own. Go for it.

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If you are in doubt why don't you sign te picture ***, inspired by ###? - Originality is nice, but the world probably isn't waiting for me to invent a round thing that makes moving objects easier.

 

Sorry, my artistic background is limited. At law school we were just taught to select those we quote carefully.

 

Honestly photography isn't just art, it has a crafts part too, and the difference between me and a mediocre cook is that he 's unlike me able to follow a recipy. So don't worry, get the job done.

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<I>Mark Klett did it with his Rephotographic Survey Project (1977-79)where he copied 19th

Century landscape images. </I><P>No Klett didn't. Yes He went to the same places and shot

as close as he could from roughly the same point of view and with the same framing. If you

compare any of Klett's images to the ones shot of the same landscapes in the 19th century

you would have to be blind not to see the differences betwen what he saw and what Jackson

photographed. The whole point of Klett's Rephotographic Survey Project was to show how we

have altered those landscapes.

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<i>Mark Klett did it with his Rephotographic Survey Project</i><p>

There must be a cultural difference between our definitions of "Copy". Rephotograhy is documentary work. Not copying. One element of photography is the pictures moment in time. Images made over such a significant period of time are not copies.

<p>

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Kier, at Greccos home page his bio says:

 

Grecco works with an unrivalled technical ability and a rare sensitivity.

 

http://www.michaelgrecco.com/about.php

 

And the tricks at The Digital Journalist , January, Issue 111, here

 

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0701/grecco02.html

 

If you have got his gear and technical ability then the only thing left to rival is his rare sensitivity!

 

Go ahead!

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Rare sensitivity?

 

He's a commercial photographer and celebrity portraitist who knows his craft. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but due to the exigencies of their trade, few commercial photographers ever develop "rare sensitivity".

 

Richard Avedon and Irving Penn are rare exceptions. Compared to them, Grecco is an uninteresting hack.

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I think Pablo's quote is "Good artists copy, great artists steal," but I've seen both versions online. If it had been "bad", the second part would probably have started with "good" instead of "great", and so I am leaning towards believing the actual quote starts with "Good". Then again, the entire thing has been translated and perhaps even paraphrased since Picasso once said words to that effect, so who knows?<p>

Making something based on someone else's work can be very tutorial, as well as a kind of tribute to the original. If you make something better of it than the original, which is what I think Picasso was alluding to, then it is indeed great art.

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Those who have seen the Diane Arbus photo of the giant man at his home with parents, have any of you seen the small Cezanne painting in the NE corner of the main room (with Matisse's wall/ceiling illustrations) at the Barnes Museum in Philly?

 

The composition and lighting ars exactly the same. In Cezanne, the man stands hunched over, with his shadow reaching up, exactly the same way as in Diane's picture.

 

Did Diane steal from Cezanne? Where did P.C steal this idea from?

 

Stealing means getting possession illegitimately. She used a trick, a way of someone else, maybe. But steal? I would almost doubt that she had seen, been to the Barnes Museum at all. But who knows what she might have seen unconsciously. And where did Paul C. get this idea from?

 

If you look for original unfound ideas in composition, keep on looking. If you photopgraph, do not mind the influences.

 

In other arts, such as music, i do not think there is a chord or melody or rythm left that has not been used. Steal - as you call this erroneously - with pride and well!

 

You are also drinking some of the molecules of H2O today that Alexander drank in his time, and so forth. We share this earth and these ideas etc etc ...

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Michael Ging said<p> <i>"I rip off Rembrandt's lighting all the time in my window portraits, and I don't send him a check."</i><p>

 

No need to Michael since as we all know Harmenszoon van Rijn has long since passed onto the great beyond.<p>

Strangely enough though, among the more prominent characteristics of his work was his use of<br> a theatrical employment of light and shadow derived from Caravaggio which he adapted for very personal means.<p>

Now since Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio just happens to be one of my long departed relatives,<br> you may instead send your checks to me and thus unburden yourself.<p>

 

Cheers!<p><div>00JTAB-34375684.jpg.f8a0ecdf2a5844ea4bcb0b774661921a.jpg</div>

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Kier, I enjoyed the discussion on your ethical question, and find it ironical that you end your dilemma about "stealing" to let us know that Grecco's book, at $20 "it's a steal." Do we have a new ethical dilemma to settle here now?

 

When I was a school teacher, I was told, "creativity is knowing who to steal from."

 

Do it.

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Carol,

 

did your teacher not know enough grammar to say

 

"creativity is knowing whom to steal from" correctly, instead of your surely misquoted and wrong

 

"creativity is knowing who to steal from".

 

Remember grammar only went out the window with this, our generation, as did whom, whose, ... and our teachers still knew grammar alright.

 

Just trying to set the historic record and evidence straight. Julius Caesar did not wear a wrist watch either, as he did on stage here last night in a play ...

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