Can Shots be Duped?

[rodney@theloughroad.com]

I have returned to locations year after year. Nature has created in me a belief that there is no going back; because each time the location is stunning, but never the same. Nature can be fickle.

I have met photographers that are open books with their knowledge, while others are completely the opposite. Having taught for a number of years it never ceases to amaze me that the compositions of people standing side by side are completely different.

So the question I would like to pose is: Do you believe that shots can be duped?

If someone tells you exactly where to go, where to stand, when might likely be the best time to go, can you get the same thing they did?

Would love to hear the groups thoughts.

[Charles Carstensen]

Rodney, I was just thinking about something similar while working on a BW digital image print that is not working. If two photographers are standing next to each other shooting about the same shot what is the result. Can one creation be a dud and the other wonderful? Photography is certainly interesting. As far as duplicating goes, Look at John Fielder's book Colorado 1870 - 2000. http://www.westcliffepublishers.com/detail.php?id=345
He did it.

[Nathan Potter]

Fielder of course didn't exactly duplicate Jacksons' images. The scenes have change drastically in 100 years but it was exactly the change that was interesting in Fielders' images. Great book BTW.

Clearly a return to a scene can result in an exact duplicate of that scene in limited circumstances. Geologic structures come to mind when done at the same time of day and year and weather conditions. But I think you may be after unusual scenes under unusual circumstances -those which make the pulse quicken and the heart beat faster and exhibit a rare set of circumstance. Here my experience says grab the shot, because I've never been able to find the same conditions again. In fact often the objects are gone completely.

An example and lesson for me is found just north of Taos NM. Looking east toward the Sangre de Christos one evening an image of a perfect group of cottonwood trees was illuminated starkly by a setting sun from the west. A thunderstorm had just past over and shaded the eastern mountains beyond the cottonwoods. I hastily set up the 4X5 but just missed the light. For ten years I have driven to the spot on occasion with the lighting conditions apparently about right only to be disappointed. There are too many other lessons that have taught me to "get it when you see it".

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Steve M Hostetter]

Rodney,, Thats a good subject,,! The first time I went to Acadia Maine I took a shot of the coastline at sunrise and got what I thought was a decent shot.. I buy an Ed Weston book and look through it and found the same exact photo with the exception Ed's was B&W and mine was color.. I had never seen Ed's (original)version till many years after I took this shot,, It was also on 8x10 film I'll try to find it..! Funny how sometimes we see alike

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Well, how many millions of people have copied Ansel's shot of Yosemite from the Tunnel View? (And didn't Ansel himself copy someone else?)

[Bruce Watson]

Do you believe that shots can be duped?

Not really. Especially if as much as a few weeks has gone by.

[Nathan Potter]

Another way you intimated looking at this issue is also interesting. Two photographers shooting the same scene at the same time might result in exactly the same photograph - or possibly not. I think this would depend on the photographers and the scene and how much they talk to one another about the scene.

I guessing that if the scene presented itself in unmistakable clarity and uniqueness the image possibilities would be recognized immediately by both photographers and rendered more or less as presented with a minimum or interpretation on the part of the photographers.

OTOH for scenes that approach banality or where one cannot easily extract an extraordinary image from the composition as presented, then each photographer may see and try to compose something quite different. The result in such cases may tell more about the photographer than about the scene. Perhaps this second case relates to that old comment "great photographs are made not found".

Just some more thoughts.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Vick Vickery]

Ah, heck...I thought thats what scanners were for! :)

[Tony Karnezis]

Can shots be duped? Sort of. I have a great vertical of the shot you used for the cover of your new book. I can sell it to you cheap. :D

[rodney@theloughroad.com]

I can sell it to you cheap. :D

well, how cheap. :-)

I had completely forgotten about that. This makes my point exactly. We were nearly side by side at the same time, but our images are very different (compositionally) from one another.

The point of the question is this: I have been asked to be involved in a project where I would 'give' my locations out for use to the project. Now, I know that there are a lot of places I've been that a huge audience already knows about. There are more than a few though, that (as far as I know) no one knows about and they are stunning places. The 'fear' would be, can someone else really dupe the shot, if I help tell them where to stand?

In return I get free advertisements and links back to my website. The angle of free seems like a good idea as long as it doesn't hurt my business.

So......still thinking.

[Sevo]

So the question I would like to pose is: Do you believe that shots can be duped?


Hardly a question of belief. Some serious time lapse guys are routinely doing it, to do long-time sequences in places where you cannot leave a unattended camera. But it often amounts to a camera joined to triangulation equipment (up to a entire total station), or to a fixed assembly with some precision mount which is partially installed on location.

And somewhat similar things have been done for ages with film and video - for composites, the perspective, lighting and contrast of fore- and background must be perfectly matched to give a credible result. And it often is done to perfect credibility - but it may take days for a crew of specialized engineers to measure and record all parameters of one set and rebuild them on the other.

Of course, duping anothers pictures is harder - but with enough effort and known variables, it can be done. Much of the art of reprography and technical documentation focuses on exact repetition of all conditions.

Sevo

[Steven Barall]

Since photographs are totally subjective, the answer to your question is no. And that doesn't even take into consideration the always changing nature of nature. I'm just talking about brain and body stuff like perception and eyesight and then add to that the technical stuff like lenses and films and chemicals. Photographs are like fingerprints, no two are the same. Have a great weekend everybody.

[Bruce Watson]

The point of the question is this: I have been asked to be involved in a project where I would 'give' my locations out for use to the project. ... The 'fear' would be, can someone else really dupe the shot, if I help tell them where to stand?

Really, they can't. Things change. The weather, the light, the seasons, mankind's intervention. Things age and fall apart, or age and grow in different directions. Trees drop limbs. And add new limbs. Or grow tall enough that they are in the way (take a look at the Blue Ridge Parkway for a graphic illustration of *that*).

It really comes down to what you mean by "dupe." If I set up in your tripod holes, use the same format and lens, same shutter speed and aperture, same film, frame it the same way you did, everything the same... I'll still make a different photograph. It can be wildly different (you had snow, I've got fall color, you had a raging waterfall, I've got a photograph of the rocks behind the waterfall) or very similar. But it's not going to be the *same.*

Lots of people have set up in St. Ansel's tripod holes, but there's only one "Clearing Winter Storm (http://www.masters-of-photography.com/A/adams/adams_clearing_winter_storm_full.html)." Similarly, I've never seen a duplicate of my photograph of Lower Cullasaja Fall. (http://www.achromaticarts.com/big_image.php?path=nc&img_num=10) Even though there's really only one spot you can stand in to make it, it's a really obvious spot, and it's been photographed many tens of thousands of times from that very spot.

[sanking]

I suspect that you took twenty people to the same place and they all shot the same scene with their tripods in the same holes all twenty final prints would be different. In your place I would not be afraid that someone would "dupe" my photograph, but that given enough chances someone would make a much better one.

Sandy King







Now, I know that there are a lot of places I've been that a huge audience already knows about. There are more than a few though, that (as far as I know) no one knows about and they are stunning places. The 'fear' would be, can someone else really dupe the shot, if I help tell them where to stand?

[Ralph Barker]

"Do you believe that shots can be duped?"

Since there are no limitations placed on the actual question, I'd have to say, "Yes."

Within the context of the post (outdoor, natural scenes), however, I'd say, "Only in the most superficial way."

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I disagree with most of the posters here. Although it's theoretically impossible to exactly duplicate a shot at a later time or by another photographer, for most subjects there are a few obvious compositions that most photographers would gravitate to. Most landscape photographers are going to work in similar light around sunrise and sunset, so while the results won't be identical, to the non-photographer they will be two pictures of pretty much the same thing. If you have secret locations, I would recomend that you keep them just that. Not only could your shots be reproduced, but the location might just become the next landscape photography cliche, and be destroyed by the masses of tourists who descend on it to pay it homage with their cameras.