Too similar ?

[QT Luong]

David Burdeny challenged about similarities to Sze Tsung Leong and Elger Esser
http://bit.ly/9hu0Fd

The comparison was already made by Tim Atherton in his blog http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2010/...d-burdeny.html and expended on Conscientious
http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2010/01/...o_similar.html

Of course, this happens all the time in travel and nature photography, but apparently it becomes a problem only in fine art circles (note also how all those involved are LF photographers). What do you think ?

[Jack Dahlgren]

That the subjects are so graphically disperse and present in both photographer's exhibitions seems like it is much more than chance. I can see two views of a pyramid being reasonable, but in conjunction with a similar view of the Sacramento River just starts to seem unlikely.

On the other hand I live near San Francisco and I know that I am not the first to have taken a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm sure it has been photographed from every angle at every time of day.

So I think there is a possibility that there is no plagarism, but the possibility of intentional reproduction is higher.

[Robert Hughes]

I can imagine one or two "really similar" shots, but this guy's passed the tripping point into blatant plagarism.

It appears that Burdeny's main rationale is "well, bigger photogs than I are ripping each other off, too, so why can't I?"

[Brian K]

It's understandable that there's a certain inevitability that either you will produce an image similar to someone else's or some one will produce one similar to yours unless you produce very contrived work. This can be especially true in landscape as it's subject doesn't move much and very often some scenes have one perfect and readily available spot where the composition and elements work best. I'm certain I've had my tripod in the same holes as preceding photographs but have attempted to use different techniques or timing or conditions to differentiate it. Failing that, I simply didn't use the images. If photographer X has photographed a scene before, does that mean that that scene is off limits to all from now on? Whether succeeding images are different or not? Are all of the National Parks off the list? Central park? Paris? Venice? Etc?

I travel to photogenic places. Partly because I like looking at beautiful locations and partly because I have a greater chance of getting an image that I like at a place I find beautiful or interesting. I recall going to Iceland in 2000 or 2001 (and again in 2002) and at that time even though Iceland had an actual advertising campaign trying to entice photographers to go there, not many had. I certainly was not the first, or even the tenth or twentieth. But it seems that after I went there, within a few years, EVERYONE went there. Not to say that I started the trend, I most certainly not. But it was inevitable that photographers attracted to bare landscape would end up there. As much as I love Iceland, I am very hesitant to return because B&W images from Iceland have become overdone.

Michael Kenna did not create long time exposures. I can recall my days at SVA in the mid 70's looking at very early photography and the look of cities without any appearance of people because the exposures were so long as to make all but the dead invisible. Time exposures and motion blur were pretty common techniques in the 70's. What Michael Kenna did was execute them exceedingly well ( they're beautiful) and create/promote an extremely effective formula. His own success has made his work seem common because so many photographers copy that formula to the letter.

I've done my share of sticks in water. i don't go out looking to do them, i fact I make it a point to avoid doing them and avoiding water, but alas most of the planet is water, and when you see a great composition with great light that just happens to have sticks in water, well, how can you not shoot it?

But right now there is so much work that looks exactly the same. And while I think (hope) that my work does not have many of the similarities of the Kenna kids, And let's be real here, much of that work is beautiful, I have to admit that I worry that because I shoot minimal B&W landscape ( very similar to what I did in the 1970's) that I too get lumped into that group.

I like a good deal of David Burdeny's work. I especially liked the Iceberg stuff and thought it was the best of that genre out there. The newer work I found rather stiff and sorry to say a bit boring, but I am somewhat distressed that the similarities of that work to several other photographers is so close. I don't think that David consciously tried to copy them. I think it's more likely that he simply went to photogenic locations, was confronted by a scene he found compelling and reached into his technique bag for the best method of capture. I think that often there are some scenes that nearly any skilled photographer is going to stop and shoot, and may very well use a method that might be similar to that used by a preceding photographer. I don't think that a good photographer imposes their technique or style on a scene , but instead the scene itself directs the photographer as to the best way to capture it.

If confronted with the same scenes that Burdeny is being criticized as copying, would I have shot them? No. Those scenes aren't compelling to me. But if I were in Greenland and were confronted with the scenes and conditions he was when he shot his icebergs, I may very well have come back with work that looks very similar to his. Does this mean I should avoid Greenland? I'm already avoiding iceland, and water, and sticks..... Maybe I should go back to still life? I could always shoot flowers, or bowls of fruit, or old worn tools. Or I could shoot portraiture and shoot people against stark white, or photograph people suffering or in distress (that work always makes the photographer seem so compassionate, photograph that drowning person instead of throwing them a life preserver) So much of it has been done before, do we all avoid any subject that's been previously done? Do you instead focus of conceptual work? But wait, that's also been so overdone and so much of it hangs on the thinnest of concepts and lacks any content except novelty. Originality in an image lacking any other merit is still a meritless image. Originality with meritorious content is the goal, but one that few seem committed to make.

Maybe we should just acknowledge that in a world where even your phone has a camera and that more than half the world's population takes photos, that true and qualitative originality is getting nearly impossible to find, and instead focus more on the content of the images.

[Ken Lee]

My Mathematics is rusty, but as human overpopulation increases towards Infinity, the probability of everyone taking all the same photos reaches... a big number

[Steven Barall]

Are you kidding me???? These are all tourist locations. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ??? If you think you can own a view of something that is already on the earth meaning something that you didn't put there, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building or the HOLLYWOOD sign or a work by Christo, then you are just stupid.

This is crass commercialism taken to an absurd level. Yossi Milo is angry because it hurts sales and not for any other reason but what an idiotic position for an art gallery to take. They are supposed to support "The Arts" knowing that a rising tide lifts all boats. Imagine professionals in the Art business intentionally wanting to make the Art community smaller because they think that's what's best for The Arts in the long run. STUPID !!!

The gallery owner is supposed to make the case that their artist is just better for whatever reason and not go out and hire a hit man (lawyer).

Do they really want someone to search museums and other photo collections to find thousands of other photos of those same locations taken over the last 150 years?

Can you imagine the hubris of Leong that he thinks he is doing something original? This guy Leong and Yossi Milo both need to be set adrift. Well, now that I think about it that's a bad idea. They'll just claim that they own all photographs of water.

[Songyun]

My Mathematics is rusty, but as human overpopulation increases towards Infinity, the probability of everyone taking all the same photos reaches... a big number

the probability of everyone taking all the same photos reaches... 0
the probability of two people taking all the same photos reaches... a big number (still it can not exceed 1)

[Robert Hughes]

The probability of one gallery artist ripping off a few other gallery artists and claiming it as a chance accident becomes ... 1.

"It's not stealing, it's appropriation."

[Brian Ellis]

I wouldn't say plagarism on the basis of the pyramid photograph alone. I made a photograph at Bodie that was a virtual duplicate of one I later saw in a book by George Tice. And that was a far more unusual subject and composition than these pyramid photographs. But when it goes beyond just this one pyramid photograph things look a lot more suspicious.

[Toyon]

I don't think of it as plaigarism, but an "homage". Homages can result in new and interesting work emerging from the original, but in this case Burdeny is unoriginal and untalented. In addition, his photoshopping of the image to remove high rises and telephone poles is crass, tasteless, and worst of all... bland.