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Aug. 6th, 2004 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynCheating in Art
I've been thinking about art and "cheating" lately.
Back when I started work on a portrait of Sythyry, I used as the basis for the background a photograph of a public park in Britain. I got it from a website about someone's trip to England. It originally featured two people in the foreground, but I cropped them out of the picture. Then I drew my background in freehand with a tablet, just eyeballing the original for reference. The final background doesn't look much like the original at all, especially since I used flat areas of color, rather than a realistic style.
I've done similar things in other pictures. One of my oil paintings used the face from a make-up ad. Another was drawn from a photograph in a wild life book. The third combined the pose from a catalog with a photo from a wildlife book; I don't think anyone would be able to identify the sources from looking at the original, but I know they were there.
But in the back of my mind, I wonder about this process. Of those artists whose work is objective, probably the majority use photo references. Some of them take their own photos or have someone do the photography specifically for them. (Olivia's husband does all the source photos for her). But I think the less wealthy cull their references from books or the web. And really, how many opportunities do you get to take your own photographs of 18th century sailing vessels?
Another odd aspect of this is that my mind thinks it's all right to copy a photograph freehand and call it "my art" -- but if I traced it, that would be wrong. Even if I labored for hours on my freehand drawing, until it looked, pixel-for-pixel, like the photograph, that'd still be okay. But cut-and-pasting in the original photograph as, say, a background -- no! Bad Rowan! No biscuit! Even if the two results were indistinguishable to anyone else, I'd still think the freehand version was "good" and that using a cut-n-paste copy of it was "bad".
The latter appears to be a question of "cheating" rather than "ethics". And "cheating" in terms of "cheating myself". I learn more about drawing by doing it freehand than by tracing, and certainly more than I do by taking someone else's photo and slapping it in. (Slapping in photos almost invariably looks bad, too, but that's another issue).
But there's an ethical issue lurking there: when is it "my art" and when is it "something I copied"? Even if an exact freehand reproduction could be considered good practice, it can't be considered good art. Where exactly is that line?
I tried making a poll to see where other people draw the line on this issue, but I think there are enough variables that the poll will only be so helpful in eliciting opinions. Comments explaining your view, whether you're an artist or not, would probably be more useful. And certainly welcome. :)
"Without Permission" should be interpreted as "permission not obtained but not explicitly forbidden" -- ie, no notices in the book or on the website saying 'don't do that'.
[Poll #331999]
I've been thinking about art and "cheating" lately.
Back when I started work on a portrait of Sythyry, I used as the basis for the background a photograph of a public park in Britain. I got it from a website about someone's trip to England. It originally featured two people in the foreground, but I cropped them out of the picture. Then I drew my background in freehand with a tablet, just eyeballing the original for reference. The final background doesn't look much like the original at all, especially since I used flat areas of color, rather than a realistic style.
I've done similar things in other pictures. One of my oil paintings used the face from a make-up ad. Another was drawn from a photograph in a wild life book. The third combined the pose from a catalog with a photo from a wildlife book; I don't think anyone would be able to identify the sources from looking at the original, but I know they were there.
But in the back of my mind, I wonder about this process. Of those artists whose work is objective, probably the majority use photo references. Some of them take their own photos or have someone do the photography specifically for them. (Olivia's husband does all the source photos for her). But I think the less wealthy cull their references from books or the web. And really, how many opportunities do you get to take your own photographs of 18th century sailing vessels?
Another odd aspect of this is that my mind thinks it's all right to copy a photograph freehand and call it "my art" -- but if I traced it, that would be wrong. Even if I labored for hours on my freehand drawing, until it looked, pixel-for-pixel, like the photograph, that'd still be okay. But cut-and-pasting in the original photograph as, say, a background -- no! Bad Rowan! No biscuit! Even if the two results were indistinguishable to anyone else, I'd still think the freehand version was "good" and that using a cut-n-paste copy of it was "bad".
The latter appears to be a question of "cheating" rather than "ethics". And "cheating" in terms of "cheating myself". I learn more about drawing by doing it freehand than by tracing, and certainly more than I do by taking someone else's photo and slapping it in. (Slapping in photos almost invariably looks bad, too, but that's another issue).
But there's an ethical issue lurking there: when is it "my art" and when is it "something I copied"? Even if an exact freehand reproduction could be considered good practice, it can't be considered good art. Where exactly is that line?
I tried making a poll to see where other people draw the line on this issue, but I think there are enough variables that the poll will only be so helpful in eliciting opinions. Comments explaining your view, whether you're an artist or not, would probably be more useful. And certainly welcome. :)
"Without Permission" should be interpreted as "permission not obtained but not explicitly forbidden" -- ie, no notices in the book or on the website saying 'don't do that'.
[Poll #331999]
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-06 02:19 pm (UTC)In copyright law, the actual photograph itself is copyrighted. That specific photograph. That means (obviously) that you can't make copies of it. Easy enough.
If you use that same photograph as a guide to go to the same location and take the same picture, you're perfectly within your rights -- you are creating your own work, not making a (literal) copy of someone else's. Same deal with using a photograph as a guide to take another, similar photograph of another location. You're not making a copy of their work, so do whatever you want.
If you take a photograph of their photograph, then you're reproducing their actual work, which would generally be a no-no.
Now, this doesn't completely match up with artistry -- e.g. if you use a photograph as a reference, and attempt to reproduce something freehand, would that be illegal (or unethical)? Generally, no -- you're producing an interpretation of the scene presented in someone else's work. I think the easiest way to tell how close you are to 'the line' is this -- if the photographer were to see your drawn interpretation of something, would they immediately recognize it as their own photograph? If not, it's fine.
Using someone else's work directly -- even if just a portion of it (e.g. sky) is generally a no-no.
It's worth noting that how the resulting work is used is also part of the consideration -- if you're making works for your own use, and maybe to show to friends, but never anything further... sure, copy all you want. You may be cheating yourself out of good practice, but you're not behaving unethically.
As for who you need permission from... it varies. The one constant is that if you're going to use photographs, you need the photographer's permission. Only he can tell you whether or not he has secured whatever other permissions are required for you to use their work in whichever ways you want. Sometimes they have (e.g. stock photo agencies), sometimes they haven't (e.g. your local newspaper).
From the photographer's perspective, permission works like this: If the photograph shows recognizable private property, or recognizable people, you need the permission of the owners of the property, or the people in the shot, to use said shot commercially. Public property or unrecognizable people don't need permission. (At least, in general. There is actually some public property that has a privately-held trademark on it, which is a whole different ball of wax...)
Again, use matters. Generally, it's considered ok (and fair use) to use recognizable people/things in photographs that won't be used in a commercial context... e.g. If you're a dentist, you can put up in your office a photograph of the Sears Tower that you took -- It's not related to your business, and you aren't going to make any money (directly or indirectly) off of it. The same wouldn't hold true, if you owned some sort of photography store and displayed the same photograph in the front window...
(continued)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-06 02:20 pm (UTC)Incidentally, it doesn't really matter who the original creator is, it matters who has the rights to assign the rights of a creation. If the original creator is dead, but someone (or some corporation) owns the rights to that creation, it doesn't change anything, compared to when the creator was originally alive.
One last thing... if a work is in the public domain, that means the original creator no longer has a copyright, and that the work is public property. This means that you can essentially do anything with such a work that you'd like. Other than posting a public domain image and saying that it's your own original work, you shouldn't fret about using public domain works in any way that you'd like. That's the whole point of the public domain.
Hope this isn't too incoherent to be useful. :) Incidentally, if you ever need wildlife references, let me know, I've got an ever-growing collection of photographs building up these days...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 11:26 am (UTC)Incidentally, it doesn't really matter who the original creator is, it matters who has the rights to assign the rights of a creation.
This is one of those areas where I think "ethics" can divurge from "law". One example from a different medium: Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings wasn't copyrighted in the USA when it was published in Britain. (I think this is in part due to problems with the copyright laws of the day.) A number of US paperback publishers printed editions of the LOTR without consulting Tolkien or paying him royalties. This was perfectly legal; he didn't hold a copyright on it in the USA. But it was still highly unethical.
Similarly, I think Michael Moore's use of "Farenheit 9/11" as the title of his film, even when Ray Bradbury had objected before release to it, was sleazy. No, Bradbury doesn't have a copyright on the phrase and Moore is under no legal obligation to respect his wishes. But ignoring them was tacky.
Now, if a creator knowingly assigns all right to an image to a company, then it's both ethical and legal for me to obtain only the company's permission, and ignore the creator. But I think there are cases where the copyright holder has obtained those rights in an unethical manner -- and in those cases, I think the ethical choice is to consider the creator's wishes (even if legally, I also need to consult with the holder).