"If you're going to steal..."

It's the whole question of "sampling" that's debated in the audio world.

Does presenting something "sampled" in a different context change the finished product into something new and unique?

Rather then a knee-jerk response, I think there are reasoned and valid arguments both pro and con.
 
ooooh. Don't get me started. This is fertile ground for the "Who Cares!" 700-pound gorillas everywhere. The same who don't know the difference between a photograph taken with a camera, and an image rendered in Photoshop.

Some minds can't tell optical illusion from superhuman powers.

So: Me like pie. Apple pie. Yeah. Definitely. Apple pie.
 
He's ripping them off.

He's ripping them off.

I'm a painter and a photographer. If this guy took a photograph of one of my original paintings and had it hung in a museum, who's work would you say it really is? - Mine.
Well the same goes for a photograph of a photograph.

Talk about a rip off artist!!! This guy takes the cake. He can't come up with his own original images so he steals those that he likes from ad campaigns.

I understand his concept about the ad campaign photos, collectively, it's an idea. But once you break out individual images and get money for them then he is ripping off the original photographer, since he's selling one image at a time he is no longer true to his idea. This must stop!.
 
Just playing devil's advocate, if I set up a shot, adjust the lighting, point the camera on a tripod, tell the model to smile, then ask my photo assistant to press the shutter button for me, whose image is it? His? "Mine"?

What is "mine"?
 
On the other hand, when blown up to size we are looking at a printed page- ie dots of ink on paper, not an enlarged negative. Screen shots of this won't really show the difference, and there is a difference. Visually the colors are different, and intellectually the intention is different.
 
Here are two photos of signage I took in Manhattan. Are these "my" images, or if I published them do the sign painters "own" the images?

If I sold my photographs to, say, The New York Times, do I owe the people who painted the signs the money I received for the images?

Or are the images now something else? A "new" image with a "new" conceptual purpose?



 
Last edited:
Peter55 said:
I'm a painter and a photographer. If this guy took a photograph of one of my original paintings and had it hung in a museum, who's work would you say it really is? - Mine.
Well the same goes for a photograph of a photograph.

...
Click to expand...

And how about that photograph we take of that lovely old car, that art deco sign, or that modern building? We appropriate others work all the time.

-concurrent post time- well done M. Valdemar- you had the image to make the point.
 
Unfortunately the world of art, business, literature and film is full of theft. The courts do little about it and enforcement is costly, time consuming and slow.

As photographers karma is all we can hope for.

Maybe Krantz should take shots of Prince's shots of Krantz and sell them on the internet? I would if I was him ;- )
 
What's strange is the value collectors put on these photos... $1.2M! The digital age is going to make for strange times, is it original or a reproduction, questions abound.
 
LuckyKarma said:
how can this guy feel like he's doing anything by.. taking pictures of other people's pictures?
Click to expand...

Maybe that's the point of his "art".

I'm not saying that's it right or it's wrong. At what point does an image become something else from the original image.

Don't get huffy and immediately trumpet moral indignation.

Think about it.
 
Pitxu said:
You guys in the states have a different mind set to europeans.
According to french law you could not publish these signs without the written permission from the owner of the property
Click to expand...
Here's a random photo taken in Paris I found on the internet.

Is this photo illegal under French law?

CS_0095_sm.jpg
 
M. Valdemar said:
Here's a random photo taken in Paris I found on the internet.

Is this photo illegal under French law?

CS_0095_sm.jpg
Click to expand...
I doubt it...but, oh-my this brings back a memory or two. I was staying at Hotel Esmeralda, right around the corner from Shakespeare, in late '92. Thanks for the pleasant diversion!


- Barrett
 
Some Devil's Advocate....

Some Devil's Advocate....

M. Valdemar said:
Just playing devil's advocate, if I set up a shot, adjust the lighting, point the camera on a tripod, tell the model to smile, then ask my photo assistant to press the shutter button for me, whose image is it? His? "Mine"?

What is "mine"?
Click to expand...

The question has a second alternate version. If I set up a shot, adjust the lighting, point the camera on a tripod, tell the model to smile, then trip the shutter with my remote control, whose image is it. Mine, or the engineer who designed the remote control? In your case, the photo assistant is only different from the remote control in that he/she needs oxygen to get the job done.
 
kuzano said:
The question has a second alternate version. If I set up a shot, adjust the lighting, point the camera on a tripod, tell the model to smile, then trip the shutter with my remote control, whose image is it. Mine, or the engineer who designed the remote control? In your case, the photo assistant is only different from the remote control in that he/she needs oxygen to get the job done.
Click to expand...

The remote control won't take you to court.
 
I think it's a matter of degree. You have the big stock companies doing similar manipulations. Who owns the light?
 
M. Valdemar said:
Maybe that's the point of his "art".

I'm not saying that's it right or it's wrong. At what point does an image become something else from the original image.

Don't get huffy and immediately trumpet moral indignation.

Think about it.
Click to expand...
OK, perhaps, but if so its hardly a truly original observation. "Ceci n'est une pipe" anyone?. Maybe that's the point. Or perhaps Manzoni had a comment that might apply.

I really don't know enough about what this guy does to comment, and don't know that I'm sufficiently exercised to find out. I'd hope that for the prices being paid for his work that he brings something to the party that's beyond banal meta-commentary. But who knows? Certainly not me.

I can see the point of the original photographer wanting at least some acknowledgement of who's photo was being photographed here. I also appreciate the fact that he's not trying to sue everything in sight.

...Mike
 
Last edited:
Mike: I think you've partly nailed it for me.

When I was a much younger pup than now, I used to dis Warhol all over the place for his "appropriations." As I got older, I came to like his stuff more, because I felt that he had, indeed, brought "more to the party", as it were. Others still regard him as an art-house grifter.

I think Jim Krantz is being one hell of a good sport about this. Perhaps this is in part because he knows that any legal action on his part would likely result in more heat than light (except, of course, for the lawyers on either side of the dispute), and he's been in the business long enough not to be a dummy about this stuff, but I can grok his dismay.

And we can chase our own tails (and each other's) about just what constitutes "original" art, and where photography does, or doesn't, fit in all this, but I think Prince sort of snaps the limb he's been long crawling out upon. Yes, you could blame the vapidity of the art establishment for throwing money at this stuff, which I regard as bad art (my mother, a painter for most of her life, talked about good and bad art, as opposed to art and non-art), but I don't think Prince alone should be piled-upon for this stuff; there's enough blame to go around, at least if you're of this mindset.

(Yikes...have I become Hilton Kramer????)


- Barrett
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom