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Plagiarism in Photography?

Updated: 12:57am est, 2/21

I couldn’t work-up enough ire to throw into the “photography plagiarism” kettle that’s been boiling. As an exercise, I’ve purposely, and inexpertly (re)taken a few photos at locations that have already been successfully photographed by others, but more interesting (at least from a street photography perspective) are situations that yield accidental or subliminal similarities.

Here’s an unintended echo of a picture by Jeff Mermelstein. I knew the Mermelstein photo, but had forgotten about it until yesterday, when it jumped out of the book, punched me in the face and stole my lunch money.

Mermelstein, from No Title Here (a tremendous book for the used price of three dollars)

Murphy, 2007

When I was photographing marching bands recently, I photographed tubas lying down, too. Should have known better!

If you have any of these of your own, it’d be interesting to see them.

And here’s one, another Mermelstein echo, from 2point8 reader, Eddie Geisinger, who has some fine street work on flickr.

Mermelstein, from “Sidewalk“

Geisinger, on flickr

And Raul sent over this, a photo of his (on the right) that a visitor to his site claimed he cribbed from Whistler!

And a quiet echo of Doisneau (gents looking at framed nudes through windows) from Paul Russell in the UK:
 

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Links:
* Help friends find their own copies
* A before/after of Shore
* “Take Twos” on flickr
* Can Photographers Be Plagiarists on Slate
* Conscientious: On Plagiarism and Photography

Tag: Tidbits

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