Are you a copycat or an original artist?

Do you, we, just copy the work we see of others, or are we original artists? I don’t even mean copying the work of others intentionally but subconsciously copying the work of others. I often like to think of myself as an original artist but am I truly? I suspect we are all influenced by the work we see, especially if we like the work.

Just this morning, I read a blog article sent to me by a friend. It was titled “Brain and Eye Photography” and can be found here. This article got me to think about this topic even more so. Are we unduly influenced by what we see and how we see it? Do we change by seeing more photography or by seeing less photography?

I guess one of the reasons I have never bought presets for Adobe Lightroom is that I edit each image individually. While this sounds great it makes it difficult to get consistency when putting together projects where you want to have a consistent style.

I know I have mentioned it in the past but I feel it bears mentioning again. One of the features of Adobe Lightroom (not Adobe Lightroom Classic) that I have found I really like is the “remix” and discover features. This feature takes you to the “cloud” and lets you see how others see the same photograph when developed in Adobe Lightroom. I find looking at these to be truly inspiring and hopefully become more creative and original.