[clackers]

Award-Winning Photographer Lisa Saad Accused of Stealing Photos

[stevebrot]

Award-Winning Photographer Lisa Saad Accused of Stealing Photos

This is a bit of a corner-case. One might argue "fair-use" since her work resulted in transformed substance and repurposing of a portion only of the pilfered stock or using a full image as a minor component of her whole. That being said, she did break the contests' rules and should be pilloried in the press for her efforts. The clip art people might also want to have a short discussion. A few years ago I found one of my friend's photos as part of someone's artistic (and commercialized) expression. Attempts at take-down or at least attribution were ignored.


Steve

[graeme83]

Very interesting, those examples look pretty damming.

Besides that I personally struggle to see how her work can really be called photography, skilful and artistic it may be and OK the elements are made up of photographs, but the end result is surely a form of illustration (as the article suggests). Even more so when the elements are sourced from others as it appears.

[MarkJerling]

Yikes! I went and had a look at the website. Pretty compelling evidence!

[FozzFoster]

Every Pentaxian's favourite YouTube photo-duo had an interesting video regarding this topic recently:

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[photoptimist]

At one level, I'm not surprised by plagarism given how easy it is to find and copy other people's images. The ease-of-finding must be so very tempting.

At a deeper level, it's clear that the plagarist fails to take the next logic step in thinking about what ease-of-finding means. If the plagarist can easily find stuff to copy, then others can easily find what the plagarist copied, too, and uncover that act of plagarism.

[SpecialK]

Had the artist published a similar tweet, she would have deleted it, and then claim she was hacked and/or her words were taken out of context.

[tvdtvdtvd]

I think Saad's manipulation of the source material, including other peoples photographs and illustrations, constitutes fair use.
The dadaists paved the way for this sort of appropriation and it has been a mainstay of art ever since. Where Saad has let
herself down was to claim she took the source photographs. Why she bothered to do that, or to enter photography contests
rather than illustration or general fine art contests, is beyond me.

Ultimately, she appears to be a talented artist who will likely only benefit from the publicity of this 'debacle', even if it
means she is no longer considered a photographer. Shame on her for not being forthright from the beginning, though
she would hardly be the first to weave a bogus story about a work of art in order to create a 'purpose' for it. Heck, the art world
practically demands it be so. In the words of Christo, why can't a work of art simply be a beautiful thing?

[Rondec]

The issues here probably have most to do with whether she is operating within the contest's rules that she has entered. It seems unlikely.

As to whether or not she can use the elements she uses in her images -- she probably can. The art world seems to be fairly forgiving of individuals taking other's work and incorporating it into their own. What is bad is to claim that you are the source material for everything. That sort of falsehood is sure to fall apart under scrutiny if it isn't true -- particularly when some of the pieces seem to be fairly large portions of her own art pieces.

[swanlefitte]

The lies hurt but they are the heart of photography since Voightlander, and through Capa. The pressure to create new content and be relevant is not backed by reality. Cheat, or be humble and overlooked.

[clackers]

Very interesting, those examples look pretty damming.

Besides that I personally struggle to see how her work can really be called photography, skilful and artistic it may be and OK the elements are made up of photographs, but the end result is surely a form of illustration (as the article suggests). Even more so when the elements are sourced from others as it appears.

Composites are normal and are in fact expected of today's photographers, Graeme … you wouldn't be hired to do real estate without replacing skies, you'd merge exposures in a landscape for a tourism commercial, the restaurant's Instagram needs you to Photoshop the stunning meal shot in a kitchen onto a table in their dining area, publicity for a theatre act will have the lead actress leaning against the name of the play on the flyer, etc. I don't see why fine arts photographers shouldn't do this also.

But using someone else's work, unattributed and unpaid for? Especially in competition … naughty Lisa!

[graeme83]

Yes but those are all photos that could exist in reality had the photographer or advertiser the time or luck with weather etc.. Cheating slightly to make deadlines or glossy adverts look good is one thing, this is on a different level.
But either way by the sounds of it she has broken the rules of a fair few of those competitions.

[sergysergy]

Leaving plagiarism aside, how is that photography?

[photoptimist]

"Fair Use" is a tricky issue and a risky defense. (Tricky eye of the beholder and eye of the original copyright holder play a big role here!)

Any alleged plagiarist is hoping that: 1) the person they copied won't find out and won't be litigious; 2) that the plagiarist's clients won't be scared off by the taint; and 3) that the court of public opinion will be kind. And if the case goes to court, then it may be the fickle whims of a judge or jury that determine the outcome.

Some of Saad's work does seem like artistic transformation of otherwise mundane stock images. But some of the examples (especially the teardrop aperture image) look more like two treatments of a theme by the same artist more so than one artist really transforming another artists work. What if Marcel van Balken had submitted his image to the same Australian Professional Photographer of the Year contest that Saad did?

Whether Saad had artistic license on her side is unclear. But I suspect what she really needs on her side now is a good lawyer and a good PR firm.

[PJ1]

Personally I would not call that photography. On the level of image creation, I think it fits the definition of plagiarism and these images seem to breach the rules of the various competitions. But if one argues that this approach to creating an image is legitimate, it raises the question of whether you actually need a camera to engage in photography (or at least to enter photography competitions).