Copying someone else's work

[wendyg]

I do follow the competition threads, and I loved SY88' picture of the baby foot/ dad hand even before it won the August comp.

I thought, as an amateur, that I might try to get a similar shot for my friends, who are hopefully having a new baby in the next week or two.

At what point do photographers start to feel that their ideas are getting 'ripped off'.

Do you consider it flattering if someone wants to copy, (or preferably 'be inspired by..') your work?

[RobDickinson]

One way of learning is copying.

You typicaly have to understand how the subject was framed, lit and how the cameras settings acheived the look, and for the business side a lot can be copy/learned, standard wedding shots, model poses , whitebox stuff etc.

[poah]

the thing with photography is that even with an attempt at copying someones work it will never usually look the same. you can take an idea or technique and apply it to your own work, it does not mean copying.

[CY88]

I'm very flattered that you liked the shot Wendy. It was really just a fortuitous snap (one of a dozen taken), that was a bit too busy in colour, but was transformed when changed to monochrome and cropped. I certainly wouldn't feel that anyone was ripping off an idea by copying the pose, as at the time not a lot of thought went into it .

I often find a lot of inspiration in other people's pictures.... and as someone has already said, you can learn a lot about technique.

In fact, the subject matter in one of the first set of pictures I had the courage to post on this forum was inspired directly by a pro photographer on here, Matt Wilkinson, and I said so in the post. I liked the look of a couple of his car shots to the extent that I went out and borrowed an identical model to the one he had shot from my local dealer so that I could try something similar.

Good luck!

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Copying is one of the best way to learn as others have alluded to. Seeing an amazing shot, working out or asking how it was done and trying to do the same really fixes technique in your head.

The main issue with it is you can, if you're not careful, remove any personal style you had of your own, and bore people with yet another car badge closeup, or start to think spot colour is clever and looks good.