Who actually took the picture?

InsuredDisaster

I'll post the photo later as I haven't had a chance to look over them. I was out walking around and spotted this strange picture of some sort of posed stick figure. I have this thing about posing in front of any figure in strange poses, whether it be statues, pictures, etc. So I shot me standing there for a bit. Then I decided to get my picture jumping through the air in front of this stick figure. Well my girlfriend was with me but she had hurt her knee earlier. So I put the camera on the tripod, aimed it, set the exposure and flash to manual, and mounted the remote release and handed it to her. I looked at the LCD in between shots to recompose and try for more proper positioning.

So for self portraits like this, when you basically do everything except for actually pushing the shutter button, who gets credit for the shot? You, or the person actuallty hitting the button? Do you have to share credit? Does it matter, say if you submitted it to someplace for publishing and got into an argument as to who gets the credit?

I'm not in such an argument, but I was curious.

pyry

InsuredDisaster wrote:

I'll post the photo later as I haven't had a chance to look over them. I was out walking around and spotted this strange picture of some sort of posed stick figure. I have this thing about posing in front of any figure in strange poses, whether it be statues, pictures, etc. So I shot me standing there for a bit. Then I decided to get my picture jumping through the air in front of this stick figure. Well my girlfriend was with me but she had hurt her knee earlier. So I put the camera on the tripod, aimed it, set the exposure and flash to manual, and mounted the remote release and handed it to her. I looked at the LCD in between shots to recompose and try for more proper positioning.

So for self portraits like this, when you basically do everything except for actually pushing the shutter button, who gets credit for the shot? You, or the person actuallty hitting the button? Do you have to share credit? Does it matter, say if you submitted it to someplace for publishing and got into an argument as to who gets the credit?

I'm not in such an argument, but I was curious.

Well, frankly, I would call that arrangement a voice operated remote controlled shutter release with adaptive timing. Things change if your assistant does more than just pushing a button.

Of course, if an argument is a possibility, such things should be sorted out on the spot beforehand.

Nikolai

pyry wrote:

...a voice operated remote controlled shutter release with adaptive timing...

That was good catchphrase , I gotta remember to use it

pyry

Nikolai wrote:

That was good catchphrase , I gotta remember to use it

Go for it

I'm sure you've used voice activated self-propelled lighting stands before, I understand they come from the same manufacturer

Scott_Quier

pyry wrote:

Go for it

I'm sure you've used voice activated self-propelled lighting stands before, I understand they come from the same manufacturer

I call them "carbon-based lightstands" as opposed to the aluminum-based type

InsuredDisaster

How do you think say, an art museum or somewhere would view it? Or a professor at a university? Plagiarism?

Howard Barlow

Who actually took the picture?

Col. Mustard. He hung it in the library.

InsuredDisaster

Howard Barlow wrote:

Who actually took the picture?

Col. Mustard. He hung it in the library.

Lol

But I'm serious. If someone sets up the camera so that they do everything except actually push the button, can they say they took it?


If for example I say, this is my self portrait, I took it, can someone say Nuh uh, oh no you didnt!!!!

Or am I just overthinking the whole thing? In the past I've set up the D300's built in time lapse feature to jsut fire away as I hit various poses, but of course that results in dozens of shots that are of nothing.

ivar

InsuredDisaster wrote:

Or am I just overthinking the whole thing?

I think so. Who cares who "took" the picture? You are the one who created it.

Richard

ivar wrote:

I think so. Who cares who "took" the picture? You are the one who created it.

Consider the opposite situation: someone else frames the scene, sets the focus, aperture, ISO and shutter speed and you press the button. Would you say it's your pic? I certainly wouldn't.

If you are concerned with a legal definition, you should consult a lawyer--I suppose all sorts of sophistry might be possible there--but I think any photographer would say it's your shot.

InsuredDisaster

Richard wrote:

Consider the opposite situation: someone else frames the scene, sets the focus, aperture, ISO and shutter speed and you press the button. Would you say it's your pic?

Ye-er-no?

Good point actually. I'm not in some lawsuit or something, but I wanted to know how much credit, if any to give a helper in situations like these. I of course want to say its my photo, but if that's a lie, then I don't want to do that.

I guess its a grey area though. If you hand your camera to someone to take your photo, and say, move your AF point over to have the photo composed just so, and tell the stranger to line up the AF point right over your nose and they do that, are they the photographer for credit purposes?

I can see thought for most cases they'd be the photog by anyone's defintions if you just hand them the camera. Not that most people would argue about that though.

Oh well, thanks for your time.

Awais Yaqub

I think person who did all settings composition editing etc etc is one who took the photo. No concern of a person who only clicked. If you take that person into account then "Camera" is one who really takes the picture so credit goes to camera. And i bet no photographer on earth will like to give credit to camera !

This is my conclusion after thinking about it for more then 24 hours

Angelo

ivar wrote:

I think so. Who cares who "took" the picture? You are the one who created it.

+1

ziggy53

If you use the camera's self timer you eliminate such issues.

If there has to be an individual pushing the shutter button to determine proper posing or whatever then they deserve some credit and it is a partnership and both names would be submitted.

Stuggi

Awais Yaqub wrote:

I think person who did all settings composition editing etc etc is one who took the photo. No concern of a person who only clicked. If you take that person into account then "Camera" is one who really takes the picture so credit goes to camera. And i bet no photographer on earth will like to give credit to camera !

This is my conclusion after thinking about it for more then 24 hours

Don't be so sure, I've heard Hasselblads take excellent photos.

InsuredDisaster

Stuggi wrote:

Don't be so sure, I've heard Hasselblads take excellent photos.

Haha, I do think that these cameras really help in many ways. I was reading pop photo and apparently they had some photog recreate a scene from 10 or 20 years ago, and he felt that the modern digital made a massive difference. But I don't think they "make" a photo, rather they just enable us to capture what we see.

JAG

Consider the history of photography.... The famous "Matthew Brady" who was credited for taking all the civil war pictures in actuality was not the one who took all the pictures that had his stamp signature on them. He hired a bunch of men to go around to the camps and battles to shoot for him. Brady actually had bad eyesight and his assistant would do the actual focusing for him. But he is credited for most of the civil war pics.

You also have "studios" such as Olan Mills and LifeTouch that have different photographers but take all the credit. But the studio themselves come up with different poses that the photographer is bound too have to use...and cannot do their own thing. You also see this in alot of major artists who do sculpting of huge rocks and stuff...only the original thought by the artist is credited . So I guess its all in how you look at it...but using an assistant to do the "grunt work" is not necessarily the one who should get credit. They might deserve a paycheck though!