I hear you Gill. People who own cameras who do not connect with the landscape they are photographing are not seeing, simply looking, browsing, shopping, not experiencing. People who say there is nothing original left to photograph - well poor lost souls. I look at the same sea and mountain view every day, and I have never seen it the same twice. The world has turned round many times, the sun has risen and set, the shadows are different. (Rabbit hole warning - Have you read Samantha Harvey’s Orbital? it still hasn’t left my mind ) Your artistry is so wonderful, calming, inspiring, you motivate me to capture and share some additional moments rather than just watch and absorb them. I find I relish the remembering of the moments through revisiting the photographs I have taken as much as anything.
Thank you so much for your comments Sarah and I am glad my work helps inspire you. What you say about connection to the landscape really resonates. I think it is this connection that helps form our voice and gives us something to say with our photography. Without it we are not 'seeing'.
Very insightful Gill. At the beginning of this piece I had so many things I wanted to say about individuality and vision, but you answered it all, almost word for word what I was thinking, as the essay progressed.
Maybe everything has been photographed before. But we can say the same thing about life- it's all been seen before and done before. But we don't ask why bother living. It hasn't been experienced or photographed but US in this exact place and at this exact time. In that sense, everything is unique and new.
I agree Erik, it is all about putting our own interpretation on things and speaking with our own voice. We all see the world in different ways and it is this that makes our images unique to us.
Gill, your work in unique, you have a certain recognisable style, therefore the image you saw purporting to be someone else's must have been yours (did you check the metadata?). It is impossible for anyone to totally replicate someone else's image, unless you are standing together with the same camera version and settings, and then post process the same, even then there will be differences! Unfortunately Facebook and other social media platforms are rife with people 'stealing' images, this happens a lot on a sites that Jane follows with respect to our dog breed, often images taken from one and posted on another!.
Most of us follow other photographers and like to shoot the 'honey spots' to see what interpretation we can make, we might try for a similar composition or view, but it will always be ours, we may return in different conditions to achieve a different or 'beter' image to the style we want to portray, as we see it, after all we are looking to create ART!
In following some photographers they quite often offer there raw images and instruction on how they have been processed, so that you can work along side them, would you get exactly the same result? I think there is so much variance between the cameras we use, and the post processing softwares that every single image much by definition be UNIQUE!.
You obviously know who took your image, presumably off social media, so the quality is not great! Yes annoyance comes first, but then what did the person hope to achieve? Perhaps it is an opportunity to reach out to the individual, they obviously like what you do, perhaps they would benefit from some one to one tutorials? Just a thought, otherwise name a shame!😀
Thank you very much for your comments Chris and I agree with what you say. If we are being true to ourselves and working with authenticity then our images will always turn out differently (even if the compositions are similar) because of how we see and process and what we are trying to achieve.
I think it is ok to be inspired by someone, but replicating an image so closely doesn't achieve anything. We should always put our own slant on our work.
Good article, Gill! I feel somewhat sorry for the person, who copied your work and even used the same title. Maybe it is someone who hasn’t been on his creative journey for long and still learns by copying (as you already mentioned). But I feel sorry because that person cuts itself short, it only sees what others see and doesn’t use they own vision to see and experience the world, and express it through their own photography. That is what photography is for me and makes it so worthwhile and important.
Absolutely Susanne. That is what photography is all about, expressing our thoughts about the world and our surrounds. Copying work is a good way to learn initially, but I think it is so important to reimagine images that have inspired us using our own voice.
I think it is wrong for any one to think it is ok to use someone else's image as their own. What pleasure is there to be gained by doing that.
For me, taking photos makes me feel good, it gives me pleasure and makes me happy. I have spent a morning in Felixstowe taking photos and I'm sure many other people will have taken photos there too. I doubt if any will be the same as mine. So yes there are still untaken images out there.
Thank you very much for your comments Rosey. I agree with you, it is good to be inspired by others but not to copy them. We should always put our own interpretation on things.
I think you have a very definite voice and because of that your images (and the message that comes across in them) will always be uniquely yours.
First of all, I have to say your images with this piece are beautiful Gill – I particularly like the portrait of the sand ‘trees’ with the distant hills across the bay…it looks very otherworldly.
You’ve made some very good observations in your piece. I too would not be best pleased if I saw exactly the same image by another photographer using the same composition and style as me, especially the same title – but then they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…hmmm, sadly, copying is the downside of some social platforms.
I think there is plenty of original landscape to photograph. It’s down to us as photographers to find it, connect with it and create our unique vision, which can be done even in a honeypot location – that just stretches the creative muscles a little further! Our style of processing and the emotion felt at the time of making the image will come through and make that image unique. The other factor of course is that nature is always in a state of flux, which adds to the uniqueness of an image as Mother Nature sculpts the landscape and the structures within it through weather conditions and light.
So, my thoughts are that yes there are still unique landscapes to be photographed – perhaps the person who copied your work just needs to learn to use their own creative vision by attending a workshop or two! 😉
Thank you very much Lin - your last comment made me laugh 🙂
I agree with everything you say. Landscapes may have been photographed hundreds of times but it is always possible to put our own spin on things. I guess if we can't do that then we should really question why we are making images at all.
My landscape photography is mostly confined to the upper peninsula of Michigan (here in the states) and I try to avoid the big 4-5 iconic locations. Is that to say I never visit them or photograph them, of course not. However I try to only visit when few if any other people are there. I have no interest in shooting landscapes shoulder to shoulder the way I did covering press conferences in my newspaper days. So sometimes I go, sometimes I avoid them, going somewhere most, if any people go.
You words, "because without that emotion my images would feel soulless and sterile," are actually how I feel. No matter what I shoot I always want to interject my emotion and the feeling I have of the scene. I can't force an image, and when I do, it never works.
Thank you very much for your comments Bryan. I agree with you, I feel if I have a strong connection to a location I will make better images. It is all about getting that emotion and connection across to the viewer. I also hate photographing in crowded locations. 🙂
A few years ago I read that a camera manufacturer was developing a camera that would refuse to take the same scene someone else had taken. Imagine that could have killed off so many landscape photographers, Instagrammers and Tiktokkers! I wonder what your comments mean for workshop organisers going to the same locations repeatedly, people trying to replicate images they saw in the brochure or website. To me, nothing beats wandering through our world, ready to capture, spontaneously, what we see that interests us, for pictures must be interesting, and not just 'pretty'. Perhaps we can be inspired by a theme or idea, a figment of our imagination (without AI). If you want something to test you, go try and create something in the Vanitas genre!
Exerting your own voice, your own perspective and message. Exactly that, Gill.
Where I live is very popular for photographs, often appearing in photography magazines, but living here, knowing the land more intricately adds value I think.
I guess it's depends on your motivation for taking photos in the first place. I could go and take photos that I think may sell and earn me money, but it wouldn't connect with my inner purpose for taking photographs, of noticing nature and the small details.
Thank you very much for your comments Hayley. I think that is exactly the point. The better we know a place the more we can say about it and the more interesting our images will be.
Such an evocative piece on landscape, change, and individuality. Well written!
My mind goes to the thoughts of John O’Donohue on landscape as a living organism. I wonder if any landscape frame can be truly duplicated. Thank you for sharing your work!
Just back from my camera club competition where I had entered a picture from Shingle Street. It was of the well-known pond with the two cottages in the background. The judge said he'd seen dozens of photos of this place and I thought he was bored looking at it before he started.
Personally I thought the light and the reflections in the pond were unusual and made it a bit different, but that clearly didn't cut through his ennui at looking at yet another image of a familiar place.
I had also entered another one of Shingle Street and he liked that one much more - 'No cottages' he said....
I suppose the message is that while an image might genuinely be fresh and interesting to you, if it's of a well-known place then there's a good chance it'll bore other people.
Thank you very much for your comments Mark, and I am sorry to hear about your camera club experience. I think judges should mark images based on their merit and not how many times they have seen something before. After all the point of a club is to learn.
I do think it is good to try and put your own interpretation on a place so I am glad he liked your second image better. 🙂
It's a thorny subject and one that will rumble on indefinitely.
For me, I find it helps to draw parallels with music when trying to understand why so many people copy images. When people start to learn a musical instrument they start by learning to play other peoples songs. Most people end up being perfectly happy playing other peoples songs forever and never have the inclination or the skill to create their own. I think it's kind of the same with photography, many people are happy visiting locations they have seen images of and bagging that image.
There are statistically many more people who start photography only to drop it a few years later, that means there are many more people learning than there are people with experience, and it's only when we gain experience that we then have the desire to create something of our own.
I might be talking absolute nonsense here, but it helps to keep me sane (relatively).
Anyway, keep it up, I love your portrayal of the Suffolk countryside, and your writing is inspirational.
Thank you so much Rick that is really kind, I am glad you are enjoying my work.
I don't think you are talking nonsense at all and I think your analogy with music is spot on, its also helped clarify things a bit better for me.
I suppose when I first started photography social media wasn't a thing so it was much harder to copy an image. I was definitely inspired by images I saw in books but they were much harder to replicate and essentially I was just trying to emulate style and technique rather than specific compositions.
I think the one thing that is very different about the world we live in today is that 20 years ago we only saw images in magazines, books, galleries, etc. These images would have been curated by someone, for example a magazine would not wish to publish an almost identical image of the Old Man of Storr every single month. However today we see images from many more people with no filters, we see everybody's learnings, mistakes, progress as it happens in real time.
Personally I preferred the old way, but that maybe just me reminiscing.
I so agree with you that I'm not reading anyone else's comment to this piece before writing my own. I guard my connection with my inner eyes and voice and knowing. It's too tenuous otherwise.
I always love reading your articles and looking at your photography and just now as I did this and scrolled through looking at the images of landscapes again, the one of the little shell just touched me - so tiny and fragile and utterly beautiful. Thank you for sharing your work and thoughts. A good start to my Monday morning.
I hear you Gill. People who own cameras who do not connect with the landscape they are photographing are not seeing, simply looking, browsing, shopping, not experiencing. People who say there is nothing original left to photograph - well poor lost souls. I look at the same sea and mountain view every day, and I have never seen it the same twice. The world has turned round many times, the sun has risen and set, the shadows are different. (Rabbit hole warning - Have you read Samantha Harvey’s Orbital? it still hasn’t left my mind ) Your artistry is so wonderful, calming, inspiring, you motivate me to capture and share some additional moments rather than just watch and absorb them. I find I relish the remembering of the moments through revisiting the photographs I have taken as much as anything.
Thank you so much for your comments Sarah and I am glad my work helps inspire you. What you say about connection to the landscape really resonates. I think it is this connection that helps form our voice and gives us something to say with our photography. Without it we are not 'seeing'.
Very insightful Gill. At the beginning of this piece I had so many things I wanted to say about individuality and vision, but you answered it all, almost word for word what I was thinking, as the essay progressed.
Maybe everything has been photographed before. But we can say the same thing about life- it's all been seen before and done before. But we don't ask why bother living. It hasn't been experienced or photographed but US in this exact place and at this exact time. In that sense, everything is unique and new.
I agree Erik, it is all about putting our own interpretation on things and speaking with our own voice. We all see the world in different ways and it is this that makes our images unique to us.
I am glad you enjoyed the post.
Well said.
Thank you.
Gill, your work in unique, you have a certain recognisable style, therefore the image you saw purporting to be someone else's must have been yours (did you check the metadata?). It is impossible for anyone to totally replicate someone else's image, unless you are standing together with the same camera version and settings, and then post process the same, even then there will be differences! Unfortunately Facebook and other social media platforms are rife with people 'stealing' images, this happens a lot on a sites that Jane follows with respect to our dog breed, often images taken from one and posted on another!.
Most of us follow other photographers and like to shoot the 'honey spots' to see what interpretation we can make, we might try for a similar composition or view, but it will always be ours, we may return in different conditions to achieve a different or 'beter' image to the style we want to portray, as we see it, after all we are looking to create ART!
In following some photographers they quite often offer there raw images and instruction on how they have been processed, so that you can work along side them, would you get exactly the same result? I think there is so much variance between the cameras we use, and the post processing softwares that every single image much by definition be UNIQUE!.
You obviously know who took your image, presumably off social media, so the quality is not great! Yes annoyance comes first, but then what did the person hope to achieve? Perhaps it is an opportunity to reach out to the individual, they obviously like what you do, perhaps they would benefit from some one to one tutorials? Just a thought, otherwise name a shame!😀
Thank you very much for your comments Chris and I agree with what you say. If we are being true to ourselves and working with authenticity then our images will always turn out differently (even if the compositions are similar) because of how we see and process and what we are trying to achieve.
I think it is ok to be inspired by someone, but replicating an image so closely doesn't achieve anything. We should always put our own slant on our work.
Good article, Gill! I feel somewhat sorry for the person, who copied your work and even used the same title. Maybe it is someone who hasn’t been on his creative journey for long and still learns by copying (as you already mentioned). But I feel sorry because that person cuts itself short, it only sees what others see and doesn’t use they own vision to see and experience the world, and express it through their own photography. That is what photography is for me and makes it so worthwhile and important.
Absolutely Susanne. That is what photography is all about, expressing our thoughts about the world and our surrounds. Copying work is a good way to learn initially, but I think it is so important to reimagine images that have inspired us using our own voice.
I think it is wrong for any one to think it is ok to use someone else's image as their own. What pleasure is there to be gained by doing that.
For me, taking photos makes me feel good, it gives me pleasure and makes me happy. I have spent a morning in Felixstowe taking photos and I'm sure many other people will have taken photos there too. I doubt if any will be the same as mine. So yes there are still untaken images out there.
Thank you very much for your comments Rosey. I agree with you, it is good to be inspired by others but not to copy them. We should always put our own interpretation on things.
I think you have a very definite voice and because of that your images (and the message that comes across in them) will always be uniquely yours.
First of all, I have to say your images with this piece are beautiful Gill – I particularly like the portrait of the sand ‘trees’ with the distant hills across the bay…it looks very otherworldly.
You’ve made some very good observations in your piece. I too would not be best pleased if I saw exactly the same image by another photographer using the same composition and style as me, especially the same title – but then they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…hmmm, sadly, copying is the downside of some social platforms.
I think there is plenty of original landscape to photograph. It’s down to us as photographers to find it, connect with it and create our unique vision, which can be done even in a honeypot location – that just stretches the creative muscles a little further! Our style of processing and the emotion felt at the time of making the image will come through and make that image unique. The other factor of course is that nature is always in a state of flux, which adds to the uniqueness of an image as Mother Nature sculpts the landscape and the structures within it through weather conditions and light.
So, my thoughts are that yes there are still unique landscapes to be photographed – perhaps the person who copied your work just needs to learn to use their own creative vision by attending a workshop or two! 😉
Thank you very much Lin - your last comment made me laugh 🙂
I agree with everything you say. Landscapes may have been photographed hundreds of times but it is always possible to put our own spin on things. I guess if we can't do that then we should really question why we are making images at all.
My landscape photography is mostly confined to the upper peninsula of Michigan (here in the states) and I try to avoid the big 4-5 iconic locations. Is that to say I never visit them or photograph them, of course not. However I try to only visit when few if any other people are there. I have no interest in shooting landscapes shoulder to shoulder the way I did covering press conferences in my newspaper days. So sometimes I go, sometimes I avoid them, going somewhere most, if any people go.
You words, "because without that emotion my images would feel soulless and sterile," are actually how I feel. No matter what I shoot I always want to interject my emotion and the feeling I have of the scene. I can't force an image, and when I do, it never works.
Thank you very much for your comments Bryan. I agree with you, I feel if I have a strong connection to a location I will make better images. It is all about getting that emotion and connection across to the viewer. I also hate photographing in crowded locations. 🙂
A few years ago I read that a camera manufacturer was developing a camera that would refuse to take the same scene someone else had taken. Imagine that could have killed off so many landscape photographers, Instagrammers and Tiktokkers! I wonder what your comments mean for workshop organisers going to the same locations repeatedly, people trying to replicate images they saw in the brochure or website. To me, nothing beats wandering through our world, ready to capture, spontaneously, what we see that interests us, for pictures must be interesting, and not just 'pretty'. Perhaps we can be inspired by a theme or idea, a figment of our imagination (without AI). If you want something to test you, go try and create something in the Vanitas genre!
Thank you very much for your comments Innes. That camera sounds interesting but I can't imagine it would catch on! 😆
I agree with your comments and think we make our best images when we photograph things that inspire or interest us.
Exerting your own voice, your own perspective and message. Exactly that, Gill.
Where I live is very popular for photographs, often appearing in photography magazines, but living here, knowing the land more intricately adds value I think.
I guess it's depends on your motivation for taking photos in the first place. I could go and take photos that I think may sell and earn me money, but it wouldn't connect with my inner purpose for taking photographs, of noticing nature and the small details.
Thank you very much for your comments Hayley. I think that is exactly the point. The better we know a place the more we can say about it and the more interesting our images will be.
Such an evocative piece on landscape, change, and individuality. Well written!
My mind goes to the thoughts of John O’Donohue on landscape as a living organism. I wonder if any landscape frame can be truly duplicated. Thank you for sharing your work!
Just back from my camera club competition where I had entered a picture from Shingle Street. It was of the well-known pond with the two cottages in the background. The judge said he'd seen dozens of photos of this place and I thought he was bored looking at it before he started.
Personally I thought the light and the reflections in the pond were unusual and made it a bit different, but that clearly didn't cut through his ennui at looking at yet another image of a familiar place.
I had also entered another one of Shingle Street and he liked that one much more - 'No cottages' he said....
I suppose the message is that while an image might genuinely be fresh and interesting to you, if it's of a well-known place then there's a good chance it'll bore other people.
Thank you very much for your comments Mark, and I am sorry to hear about your camera club experience. I think judges should mark images based on their merit and not how many times they have seen something before. After all the point of a club is to learn.
I do think it is good to try and put your own interpretation on a place so I am glad he liked your second image better. 🙂
Love these👌📷
Thank you. 🙂
Very nicely written Gill.
It's a thorny subject and one that will rumble on indefinitely.
For me, I find it helps to draw parallels with music when trying to understand why so many people copy images. When people start to learn a musical instrument they start by learning to play other peoples songs. Most people end up being perfectly happy playing other peoples songs forever and never have the inclination or the skill to create their own. I think it's kind of the same with photography, many people are happy visiting locations they have seen images of and bagging that image.
There are statistically many more people who start photography only to drop it a few years later, that means there are many more people learning than there are people with experience, and it's only when we gain experience that we then have the desire to create something of our own.
I might be talking absolute nonsense here, but it helps to keep me sane (relatively).
Anyway, keep it up, I love your portrayal of the Suffolk countryside, and your writing is inspirational.
Rick
Thank you so much Rick that is really kind, I am glad you are enjoying my work.
I don't think you are talking nonsense at all and I think your analogy with music is spot on, its also helped clarify things a bit better for me.
I suppose when I first started photography social media wasn't a thing so it was much harder to copy an image. I was definitely inspired by images I saw in books but they were much harder to replicate and essentially I was just trying to emulate style and technique rather than specific compositions.
Its good to see it from a new angle - thank you 🙂
I think the one thing that is very different about the world we live in today is that 20 years ago we only saw images in magazines, books, galleries, etc. These images would have been curated by someone, for example a magazine would not wish to publish an almost identical image of the Old Man of Storr every single month. However today we see images from many more people with no filters, we see everybody's learnings, mistakes, progress as it happens in real time.
Personally I preferred the old way, but that maybe just me reminiscing.
When you take a photo…..that is an original moment captured forever…
People will say….”I feel like I have seen this before”….because somewhere in their timeline they may have that memory….
For a photographer to present a new perspective or trigger a memory is equally rewarding…….
I do not believe that there is anything that has been tried or attempted with a camera over the history of photography….
You get all of the evolutionary and revolutionary elements with post processing….
Just my opinion…
I so agree with you that I'm not reading anyone else's comment to this piece before writing my own. I guard my connection with my inner eyes and voice and knowing. It's too tenuous otherwise.
I always love reading your articles and looking at your photography and just now as I did this and scrolled through looking at the images of landscapes again, the one of the little shell just touched me - so tiny and fragile and utterly beautiful. Thank you for sharing your work and thoughts. A good start to my Monday morning.
Thank you so much Heather, I am glad you enjoyed it.