'borrowing' an idea?

I saw a great photo. I really liked the concept expressed. I would like to try my hand at capturing it and entering my results in a contest. As long as I take my own picture is that on the up & up?

The fact you are asking the question, means you know the answer, but want someone to tell you it isn't so. On the other hand, how many truly original photographic concepts are there out there. On the other hand, if anyone judging this "contest" has seen the image you "borrow", how much chance will you have of winning?

Copying a concept is IMO a form of flattery. And you have no way of knowing if the photograph you saw was the original expression of that concept anyway.

Trying to exactly reproduce a photo, though, is IMO not cool for a contest. By that I mean shooting the same subject under the same conditions.

Have a link?

Shoot your own interpretation of the subject, Shoot RAW and add your own unique processing. It will be your vision.

I would say trying to capture the 'concept' is fine. However, I do not think trying to copy the photo or even closely resemble it and entering it in a contest is ok. Certainly imitating and trying to replicate other peoples' work is a part of learning and a part of creating your own unique style. But effectively entering someone else's work into a contest as your own is totally different- not ok.

Besides, how rewarding would it be if you wont this contest, knowing that it was someone else's idea anyways? It would be way more rewarding to win using your own work. Shoot, even if you didn't win, I think as long as you created your own piece it would still be more rewarding because in the process you'd create your own piece of art that you can claim as totally unique.

There are so few 'original' ideas anymore, thanks to the internet. Everyone takes inspiration from somewhere. I don't think there's a problem, unless it's trying to blatantly rip it off. IE, say you saw someone take the concept of 'no use crying over spilled milk', and you wanted to do it as well. Always some way to make it your own. I would feel awkard trying to completely recreate something exactly, though.

MilesApartPhotography wrote in post #12862752
There are so few 'original' ideas anymore, thanks to the internet. Everyone takes inspiration from somewhere. I don't think there's a problem, unless it's trying to blatantly rip it off. IE, say you saw someone take the concept of 'no use crying over spilled milk', and you wanted to do it as well. Always some way to make it your own. I would feel awkard trying to completely recreate something exactly, though.

Maybe, but that doesn't give anyone the right to rip off someone else's image. Certainly I could understand the argument that there are limited "concepts" and that often the same "concepts" are redone by multiple people. But that' doesn't mean there's only one way to represent those concepts. And that's where everyone's individual creativity kicks in. That's what's so awesome about this forum, is you can come here and see all the different ways people convey some of the same concepts.

I agree with you saying they should make it their own though. I don't think it's ok to copy or even closely resemble the original image, but I think its perfectly acceptable to take their concept or idea, and express it in your own way.

hockeyplaya13 wrote in post #12862900
Maybe, but that doesn't give anyone the right to rip off someone else's image. Certainly I could understand the argument that there are limited "concepts" and that often the same "concepts" are redone by multiple people. But that' doesn't mean there's only one way to represent those concepts. And that's where everyone's individual creativity kicks in. That's what's so awesome about this forum, is you can come here and see all the different ways people convey some of the same concepts.

I agree with you saying they should make it their own though. I don't think it's ok to copy or even closely resemble the original image, but I think its perfectly acceptable to take their concept or idea, and express it in your own way.

I think it'd be easier to really judge this if we knew what the OP was trying to copy. What I imagine is something different from others. I know you can be creative and come up with your own ideas. But I just mean, in this day and age if you like a concept, even if you think you've come up with it yourself, if you google it to be sure, you 9 times out of 10 find some sort of rendition of it. But you make it your own, and you're not copying something. Now if he saw something completely out of the norm, like a dog in a china cabinet playing the saxophone, and then tried to literally redo it, it'd be put off by that a lot lol.

I just mean you shouldn't feel bad if you see a pose or idea that you like that you haven't tried, and you want to make it your own. I don't think you should ever blatantly rip someone off. Case in point, this isn't really even on the same plane of thought, but when I was starting to do engagement shots, I googled engagement shot ideas, and I loved the zoom of clasped hands when a couple was walking away. I don't feel bad for adding this to the list of ideas to use when shooting. I know it's completely different, but that's kind of what i'm referencing when I say you can utilize ideas. Like I said, if it was some unique crazy concept, it would be a different case.

I agree, lets see the shot in question!

I might suggest that a definition of the word "concept" is called for...posing, PP, lighting....

people could argue this all day long but without seeing the 'copied' photo & the OP's version we'd all just go in circles.....

hockeyplaya13 wrote in post #12862900
Maybe, but that doesn't give anyone the right to rip off someone else's image. Certainly I could understand the argument that there are limited "concepts" and that often the same "concepts" are redone by multiple people. But that' doesn't mean there's only one way to represent those concepts. And that's where everyone's individual creativity kicks in. That's what's so awesome about this forum, is you can come here and see all the different ways people convey some of the same concepts.

I agree with you saying they should make it their own though. I don't think it's ok to copy or even closely resemble the original image, but I think its perfectly acceptable to take their concept or idea, and express it in your own way.

Nowhere did he say he was going to rip off anyones photo. He wants to take his own picture utilizing the same concept he saw in someone else's photo.

As already expressed by others, there is very few if any original concepts or ideas anymore. If there is they are locked away and never seen by public eyes.
If you take a picture with your camera, you are already adding your own personal touch to it before any pp has been done therefore it's not stealing anything. It shouldn't even matter if you take a picture of the same subject, it's still your picture.

Borrowing ideas is how photography has evolved to what it is today.

I look at a lot of pictures, mainly on these forums, I may replicate a picture I see but I would not try and win a contest with one, See if I see a really cool picture of something Ill try doing it for the sake of taking the picture and learning how to do it, but I would not call the image "my own" because creatively it belongs to someone else.

Hard Drive Disk wrote in post #12866607
I look at a lot of pictures, mainly on these forums, I may replicate a picture I see but I would not try and win a contest with one, See if I see a really cool picture of something Ill try doing it for the sake of taking the picture and learning how to do it, but I would not call the image "my own" because creatively it belongs to someone else.

If you look at things that way then you would never be able to enter any picture into a contest. Chances are about 99.999% that someone else has already used that idea.

Unless that person configures the camera, composes and takes the picture for you, and then did any post processing, creatively it would still belong to you.
If you take a picture and do your own pp it's your photo and everything about it belongs to you regardless whose work it might emulate.
We learn from each other, we share ideas, we do things that are very similar to others. Like I said above, that is how photography has evolved. That is how standards have been established.

You can copyright a picture, but you can't copyright an idea.

tkerr wrote in post #12866839
If you look at things that way then you would never be able to enter any picture into a contest. Chances are about 99.999% that someone else has already used that idea.

Unless that person configures the camera, composes and takes the picture for you, and then did any post processing, creatively it would still belong to you.
If you take a picture and do your own pp it's your photo and everything about it belongs to you regardless whose work it might emulate.
We learn from each other, we share ideas, we do things that are very similar to others. Like I said above, that is how photography has evolved. That is how standards have been established.

You can copyright a picture, but you can't copyright an idea.

I understand that, say someone has a picture of (i have actually seen this ages ago) a basketball on wood flooring with everything blacked out cept for one spotlight on the ball, I would ask how it was done, then try it for myself, I would not enter that into a contest because I would feel as if it was not entirely mine. This is hard to explain.

tkerr wrote in post #12866594
Nowhere did he say he was going to rip off anyones photo. He wants to take his own picture utilizing the same concept he saw in someone else's photo.

As already expressed by others, there is very few if any original concepts or ideas anymore. If there is they are locked away and never seen by public eyes.
If you take a picture with your camera, you are already adding your own personal touch to it before any pp has been done therefore it's not stealing anything. It shouldn't even matter if you take a picture of the same subject, it's still your picture.

Borrowing ideas is how photography has evolved to what it is today.

...I don't think I ever said that HE said he was going to rip off anyone's photos. It just seemed to me that MilesApartPhotography'​s comment that "there are so few 'original' photos anymore, thanks to the internet" sort of implied that because there are essentially no original photos, it's ok to copy. I know that's not what they intended, but I just wanted to be clear that no one should try to use that as any sort of justification.

Also, just because there are essentially no "original" concepts or ideas doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who duplicates it is copying it, which is what you imply. You seem to imply that because there are no original concepts, we are all copiers in some regard, and therefore it is ok, to a degree. I think I see what you are saying, but I disagree with the first part. Just because someone across the country may have had an idea and created some image and I created something just like it doesn't automatically mean I copied it. With 300+ million people in the country, it's quite possible that two people could think of the same idea on their own, without any knowledge of the other. Therefore, although it is technically the same idea, it was original on both counts- both people synthesized the idea on their own without knowledge of the other. This is not copying. Copying is observing something done by someone else and then duplicating that, not synthesizing the idea on your own.

And let me reiterate: I don't think all copying is bad. Certainly it's part of the learning process. I'm just saying that, in my opinion, IF the OP was going to directly or closely copy someone's 'image' (not concept) and enter it into a contest as his own, that would be wrong.

Imitating or recreating a concept I don't have a problem with and the verbiage of the OP lends itself to this.