Excellent Article for All Artists

Guy Tal has written an eloquent essay that can serve as a roadmap to authentic artistic development for budding photographers (and a few straggling, self-described ‘pros’ and ‘amateurs’).  Dismayed and no doubt irritated by requests from photographers digging for information not only on where an image was made but also the steps taken to develop it, Guy explains his position on this kind of ‘artistic shortcutting’.  I am in complete agreement with him.  Having met Guy on two occasions and followed his writing, he always struck me as a fair and quietly passionate person with high ethical standards and a developed morality.  In a day and age where the ease of being able to do something (like pirate movies or music off the internet) tends to make it morally acceptable, Guy’s integrity is welcome.

After reading all the comments to date, it is clear that some people are not understanding his message, which is quite simple.  Guy is not against giving out location data, or any particular data about his images in and of itself; rather, he is against assisting photographers who merely wish to plunk their tripod legs into the holes in the sand where his tripod just stood.  In other words, he is against artistic plagiarism:  photographers seeking to reproduce his artistic vision and call it their own.  I know what he is getting at having seen not copies of my work (a compliment or an insult :P?) but of Darwin’s, especially his famous ice cracks and bubbles at Abraham Lake.  I’ve seen two photographers make images that were stylistically so close to Darwin’s that they could not be told apart by Darwin himself at first, yet no mention of their inspiration was made at the time the images were posted publicly.  These photographers were very skilled (just try and copy one of Darwin’s compositions!) but sadly lacked the honesty to admit their inspiration and the integrity to state that they were working in a style that was fairly obviously that of a particular artist.  While it is easy to make an image of the infamous ice that is recognizable as Darwin’s stomping grounds, it is difficult to make it look like a Darwin image.  And I can appreciate the argument about lack of time to do your own scouting, but this does not run contrary to Guy’s point.  If you’re on a business trip, or just concerned with resources, by all means ask a local some details on potential images.  But that is a far cry from copying another artist’s ideas.

Having studied art, I agree with Guy that there is great educational benefit to re-working another artist’s vision.  The point is to see what you can learn by getting into that artist’s head and to develop your own ‘hard skills’ with your artistic tools of brush or pen.  But we always noted our inspiration on the artwork itself (“after the style of…”) and we were always encouraged not to make a copy but an interpretation of the piece.  Copying and taking credit for something that was not yours was really, really bad.  You would get kicked out of school.

Why this level of integrity has not carried over to photography is strange to me.  I think it has something to do with the ease with which a photograph can be made in a technical sense.  Learning how to paint like Picasso would take some talent, but learning exposure is less challenging.  Having someone else show you a magical composition in a beautiful place…and voila!  You have your own masterpiece.

Except that you don’t.  And this is Guy’s ultimate point.  The loser in that case is always the copycat.  Photographers, and other artists, who knowingly copy the artwork of other artists are draining their own creative juices.  In the end, they’ll end up like the moths in the image below: dry husks empty of their own creativity because all they did was fly at the light behind another artist’s vision.

~ by Samantha on January 6, 2011.