I tend to disagree, though I admit I may be biased, as a photographer. And for the fact that Kat Von D's own legal team has been quite aggressive in pursuing other artists reproducing, sorry, "transforming" her work.
But I don't see anything overly original in this. It'd be like people selling their colored pencil facsimiles of the Mona Lisa. There's talent in the technique, but there's next to no creativity in the artistic expression.
Also, as an aside, the photographer isn't exactly hurting for money either, so I don't think it's simple greed.
> Also, as an aside, the photographer isn't exactly hurting for money either, so I don't think it's simple greed.
This seems contradicted by the article:
> “I support my family by licensing my images. Please respect the rights of all artists,” the photographer’s Instagram bio reads.
> Bloomberg Law reports that Sedlik’s attorneys showed examples of photographs that he has licensed to artists in the past for them to adapt and sell, according to parameters the photographer and other artists negotiate. In one case where a painter adapted the Miles Davis portrait into a more colorful image, Sedlik expects to make up to $85,000.
I do some hobby photography, but nothing worth monetizing so we may not share the same views.
I get what you're saying, but I would honestly say the same thing of the original photograph. Its bog-standard "serious and a little melancholic", with the only really notable part being the subject.
The execution is certainly talented (far better than I could muster), but I've gone for this "look" in a bunch of portraits and I've never seen this photo before this article.
I guess what I'm saying is that if the client asked for a serious portrait of a person, this is basically exactly what my mind thinks of. Serious facial expression, dark vignette, grayscale; the hand is the only part that isn't a cliche at this point.
Photography is kind of a weird space for this, imo, because it captures something that actually existed, almost exactly (minus editing). I.e. what would it look like if someone drew/painted/tattooed Miles Davis doing that gesture without using that photo as a reference? How much prompting would it take for them to replicate this photo? I suspect if you asked an artist for "a brooding Miles Davis making a shhh gesture" you'd get something remarkably close to this.
I'm rambling a bit, but I do think creativity in photography as it relates to copyright is an interesting question. The medium demands that the subject and pose are real, and there's certainly creativity in choosing those, but to what degree does the photographer own "that subject in that pose"?
> And for the fact that Kat Von D's own legal team has been quite aggressive in pursuing other artists reproducing, sorry, "transforming" her work.
I'm not really familiar with Kat Von D, but that's disappointing if true. I tried to search, but the results are flooded with this exact case at the moment and gave up after 3 pages of results.
> It'd be like people selling their colored pencil facsimiles of the Mona Lisa. There's talent in the technique, but there's next to no creativity in the artistic expression.
But I don't see anything overly original in this. It'd be like people selling their colored pencil facsimiles of the Mona Lisa. There's talent in the technique, but there's next to no creativity in the artistic expression.
Also, as an aside, the photographer isn't exactly hurting for money either, so I don't think it's simple greed.