What makes an image 'original'

[Ray Nalley]

I try to stay immersed in photography every day, which means that if I'm not shooting I'm looking at images in books, galleries or on the web. Looking at images constantly reminds me that most of them could be the same photo—just put some different people in the same bar seats and shoot 'em wide open with fast film.

Which has me thinking about originality in a day when we are flooded with images. Specifically about making my own images original and fresh. But, in a general sense, how do you define "originality?" Of course on the surface every photo is in some sense "original," but I'm more talking about those photos you see that just stop you in your tracks and make you say, "Wow, now THAT's original."

 

[retnull]

It's about ideas and attitudes. Have a look around at this excellent photoblog:
http://www.iheartphotograph.blogspot.com/

 

[M4streetshooter]

There is nothing original any more....so let's take the word apart like this.....

original.....origin..the origin, is what stops you in your track, as you stated.

It's the photographer and his relationship to the medium and being in the here and now....

that makes great images......that's the origin of the work.

 

[MaxElmar]

Whenever someone says "Wow - that's original!" - before I agree with them, I usually remember that I haven't really seen all that much.
I'm not saying artistic originality is overrated - I simply doubt it exists outside the observer. Most scholars recognize that all but one of Shakespeare's plays are based on, among others, Roman (i.e. Plautus, Seneca) which are based on Greek (usually lost comedies and tragedies). The Tempest stands alone as an "original" plot - and that one probably based on a contemporary shipwreck account. "Ripped from the headlines" as it were.
Nor am I saying "copy old stuff." Or that things can't be trite or hackneyed - done to death.

 

[Roger Hicks]

You can always find a photograph that is, in one sense or another, an antecedent to any other photograph; so perhaps it's quality, not originality after all.

This of course demands the question, 'What is quality?'

Remember, too, the famous Dr. Johnson criticism: "You work is both good and original. Unfortunately, the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good."

Cheers,

Roger

 

[georgef]

I believe there is still room for originality; but with the amount of photography out there today, the margin by which one is original is much smaller than it used to be; sometimes it may even be missed.
I think we all, at some point in time, find ourselves looking at the world through a different eye, which makes it original to us, but to the grander world it may have already be done. Its all relative.

Roger, I LOVE that quote; have not heard it before...cool 🙂

 

[Encinalense]

Why not ask the opposite question: what is cliche in photography?

 

[gns]

Original is just new or different in some way. Not done before. Not too hard to do that, I think, if you are not concerned with quality. Which is what Roger brought up. Quality though, is not that hard to arrive at either. Just emulate something else that is already recognized as good.

The real problem (which the Dr. Johnson quote hints at and which many others have asked before), is how do you make something which is both original AND good. Having created something original, how do you know if it is really any good? Since, if it is truely new, there can be no precedent or guide by which to evaluate its quality.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[ErnestoJL]

IMO, "original" is what catches your eyes and attention, in other words what you haven´t seen before, but that doesn´t need to be technically perfect, nor implies that it hasn´t been done before by others. It´s just what is new and perhaps surprising too.
As an example, Capa´s picture of allied forces landing in Normandie are perhaps not perfect technically speaking, but transmits the impression (emotional) of the photographer to you. That makes it original at least for me.

Cheers
Ernesto

 

[Roger Hicks]

The real problem (which the Dr. Johnson quote hints at and which many others have asked before), is how do you make something which is both original AND good. Having created something original, how do you know if it is really any good? Since, if it is truely new, there can be no precedent or guide by which to evaluate its quality.

Dear Gary,

An indisputable analysis, also illustrated by slood. Unless we take account of slood, we cannot fully understand any work of art. What is slood? Don't know: it's completely new.

Rather than 'originality', a model I have used for a long time is that there are days when you see everything as if for the first time, with an unusual intensity; another way of describing the same thing is, from the first line of a poem, "I see everything twice today."

A good photograph does exactly the same: not presenting something completely new, but presenting it as if for the first time.

Cheers,

R.

 

[gns]

quote: "A good photograph does exactly the same: not presenting something completely new, but presenting it as if for the first time".

That sounds good, but what gives you that sense of the "First time"? Must be something actually original in it that does that, I would think.

I guess nothing is completely original. Everything builds from and is a reaction to what came before.

Photography (because it is primarily mechanical or automatic- not made by hand) seems to make the task of creating something unique (something that sets itself apart) particularly difficult.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[georgef]

One of the better descriptions of genius I have ever heard, can be atteched to originality, I think: "...genius is looking at what everyone else looked and seeing what nobody else saw..."

 

[rover]

There is nothing original any more....so let's take the word apart like this.....

original.....origin..the origin, is what stops you in your track, as you stated.

It's the photographer and his relationship to the medium and being in the here and now....

that makes great images......that's the origin of the work.

After 100 plus years I agree. It has all been done. But the specific moment that you capture is unique, and the work that you do to create your image is your own. Original may be like what was done before, but different to the photographer, or individual who connects specifically to his work.