People tend to find similarities in images. Let’s look through this amazing selection of images that have the same meaning, color, shape, and disposition.
Similarities often happen spontaneously and amaze us with the synchronicity of their emergence. There are surprising and unexplained coincidences in science, communication, and art: simultaneous and identical phrases in conversation or music rhapsodiesThe article is not about finding the first author in the series of repetitions. We just wanted to stress that people value the variety and originality in informational flows. And it does not depend on what tool is used for sending a message: .
However, the idea is often so engaging that you want to repeat it consciously. It is acceptable. The repetition is an effort to make the piece of art better or go the author’s way and learn something. Let’s look at the examples of visual pattern similarity and photo pairs that are similar but not the same.
Trolley by Robert Frank
Terrace de Cafe by William Klein
August Sander. Young Farmers/Jungbauern. 1914
Giancarlo Rado
The worst case is when a photographer creates a copy of someone else’s piece of work whether he is aware of it or not. The art project ‘Divine Cracks’ by Italian professional photographer Aliocha Merker won 1st place in the Fine Art category at the Golden Camera competition in 2014.
Aliosha Merker. Italy
A very similar concept was used by the French architect and photographer Eric Marrian. In his artworks he depicted the human body made of alabaster - often in pretty much the manner, Merker did.
Eric Marrian
The worst approach is when a repetition is claimed to be the author’s original artwork. Here are two photographers covering the topic of emigration and refugees arriving in the EU with a series of very similar photos.
Samuel Ivin ‘Lingering Ghosts’: ‘The aim of my documentary photography project ‘Lingering Ghosts’ is to raise questions about the UK’s migration system and how the refugees feel themselves arriving in our country seeking safety. These ‘Lingering Ghosts’ cannot fully integrate into UK society and are up in the air for a long time. This often leads to the loss of dignity, purpose, and confidence. I hope to convey the feeling of disappointment and confusion of refugees losing their identity to the audience.
And here is a series of Robert Tappert - the Grand Prix winner at the Slovak Press Photo 2015 that covers the same topic with similar images. His collection has a shorter name – the #ID series.
The article is not about finding the first author in the series of repetitions. We just wanted to stress that people value the variety and originality in informational flows. And it does not depend on what tool is used for sending a message: photography, art, prose, or music. Thanks to the Internet, today any photographer can know beforehand how the topic of his project was covered by other photographers (if it was). And so he can avoid the repetitions.
Author: Vladyslava Rykova. Internet marketing expert. Maintains an author's blog about marketing. Head of the MAVR marketing agency. Master of Business Administration (MBA). Work experience: 8 years in the field of Internet marketing. Author of the book “How to become an Internet marketer”.
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