Site stealers

[MasiKast]

Do you guys and gals run into other local photographers stealing your sites, locations possibly exact shots? If so how do you handle it?

I'm mainly speaking about a certain place not many may people know about, and them doing exact portraits. In the style you may have done for them or shown them.

I understand this is the world of photography, but really? The EXACT SHOT? Not even a phone call or a message to see if it was cool to take their models there?

[ravncat]

I suppose one could just buy land...

At least their work will either be derivitive

I have the problem of people noticing I have a big camera and then standing where I was to get the shot, not even knowing what I was looking at. It's a problem cause I want to teach, but not everyone wants a lesson

[mk12mod]

As long as you enjoy photographing that particular area it shouldn't matter what others do... You can't trademark the land....

[mad editor]

Exactly. Unless you own the land it's open to all! And you can't copyright your poses. I do not see a problem.

[dakwegmo]

What's the point of showing them the location and teaching them the style? If it's so they have new tools to work with, then it seems perfectly reasonable for them to duplicate what you did so they can master it before making it their own. Chances are you've learned a lot of locations and techniques from other photographers do you acknowledge them any time you show a photo?

[Izzy]

You only get copied when you are good. I say shake them even harder and get shots that they simply can not. Keep raising the bar and make them look like a second rate copy. I have done this to my competitors many times over. It took me shooting outdoors exclusively to get them to leave the comfort of the known.

I would call them when I saw them doing the copy, inform them of who I was and thank them for being a second rate copy of me.

Keep Shooting

[Jim Bryant]

There's nothing you can really do about it. So, enjoy photography and don't worry about the others.

[Cow_king]

"If there is something to steal, I steal it!."
“Good artists copy, great artists steal”
Pablo Picasso


At the end of the day we all got where we are and will continue forward by observing others taking ideas and making them our own, its not like they took pictures of your subjects/clients and then sold them the images

My wife always gets upset that people copy ideas from me and or ask how i did images but ya know what? I did and do the same thing to other photographers

Life goes on the world continues to go round and round the only thing that changes in life is how you perceive it

[MasiKast]

I love every one's answers! Ok. So I decided to have a chit-chat with her, explaining that I was not mad, just kinda not ok with her not asking first. It's a really dangerous area and she took a high school student there. It worried me that she didn't really know the area, respect or acknowledge that I did a shoot of her (the other photographer) at the spot.

After I knew she understood why I brought it up, and that if certain few other photographers in the area might not have been so nice about the situation; I told her I was flattered and left it at that. None of her shots were as good as mine anyways

We live we learn.

[Murtasma]

Why do you care so much? Making a good image is more then just standing in a certain spot. With photography it's extremely hard to be original. If you are going to some dark alley way, a place where there is an arch, some wall with texture or graffiti I've seen it a million times.

Making an original background for a portrait is difficult and odds are if you're not making it yourself it's been done before. You're probably just copying someone else's style with out even knowing it.