These Photos Show the Thin Lines Between Coincidence, Plagiarism, and Inspiration

What follows is one of the strangest and most remarkable coincidences I've ever come across in the world of photography. We've heard of photos that were blatantly stolen, but what happens when the concept of a major digital art project is copied? Is it even possible to copy a "copy" of an idea, or can two different artists be inspired to come up with the exact same concept completely independently? This is the tale of two composite photographs.

This whole idea came to light when Fstoppers posted this article about a month ago. Ankur Patar was hired by Adobe as part of a campaign to show off their stock photo collection. His task was to recreate "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee," a 1633 painting by Rembrandt that was stolen in 1990 and never recovered. Using only stock images, Patar was able to create a remarkable imitation; you can see his process here on his website and the final result below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ-ZmQOEOoc

In the comments of our article on Adobe's incredible stock photo concept, Patrick Hall noticed something bizarre: an artist in the Fstoppers Community had posted his own recreation of the exact same Rembrandt painting six months prior to Adobe's new ad campaign. Although Joël Vegt's version was a bit more humorous, the resemblance was rather uncanny. 

Mathematically speaking, the probability of this being coincidence seemed small, so I reached out to both Vegt and Patar to get their take on both pieces of digital art. Vegt was surprised; he had never heard of the Adobe campaign and wasn't aware of Patar's image. The story got stranger as we went on. It turns out that Vegt had made a social media post on January 9, 2014 asking his followers to help him decide which classic painting to recreate. After deciding on Rembrandt's "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee," Vegt posted his first digital composite on October 13, 2015: 

The original intent of his version was simply to build his portfolio and make an image featuring three of his friend's children portrayed as pirates on the sea. Vegt chose the Rembrandt painting because he felt a full-size pirate ship would make the models seem too small in comparison. The work was a huge success and brought Lumistroke, the company he started with his business partner, Marc Marselje, a good deal of praise and accolades. 

I'm not a digital artist, so I deferred to Vegt's expertise when asking him what he thought of the coincidence. He expressed disbelief at the idea of a coincidence, reasoning that "it's easier to commission someone to recreate it when you've seen it can be done." I decided to look up the painting's title on major photo-sharing sites to see if this concept  had been done before. Maybe there was an underground trend of digital artists recreating classic Baroque era paintings with stock art. My online search became futile as I found no other pieces of digital art combining these two ideas together. Then, Vegt pointed out something truly remarkable.

Some of the images used in the Adobe commissioned art were the same as what Vegt used in his rendition. As you can see above, both images contain the exact same image of a wave splash in nearly the exact same spot of the composite. Statistically, this seems unlikely, but to be fair, perhaps this specific image of an ocean splash is so popular on all micro stock sites that it would be an obvious choice for someone wanting to composite a painting like this. Its shape also matches the original painting in that area quite well. 

At this point, I reached out to Patar, the creator of Adobe's version, to ask his side of things. He was genuinely surprised; he had never seen Vegt's version before and mentioned that he had been assigned the Rembrandt painting by Adobe for the project. He himself noted that it was a "really big coincidence."

And so finally, I reached out to Adobe. They indicated that they had not seen Vegt's image on Fstoppers previously, and they had hired the advertising firm Goodby Silverstein and Partners to coordinate the project. Adobe further noted that "images were solely chosen based on famous lost works of art. It's not surprising to see other artists replicate these well-known images, and in fact, we hope many more are inspired to do so." It appears the agency handled the majority of the project.

And so, we come to the real meat of this. The Adobe campaign image seems to be a case of remarkable coincidence, and perhaps Adobe had a point: if the concept was lost works of art, the Rembrandt painting is a prime candidate and thus likely to pop up more than once. But at the same time, the very concept of the commissioned art, the idea of using stock images — the essence of the art — seem to be present in the second version. This presents an interesting question, one with far broader implications and consequences than a single image. Is there a responsibility in art to know the repertoire well enough to avoid accidents such as this? Or, if I put it in a more moderate framing: is there a responsibility to be inquisitive enough to investigate and ensure one is not inadvertently copying another's work, or at the very least, the essence of their work?

Even if this had not been a coincidence, if Adobe had seen it and had paid someone to do a similar thing, is that wrong? After all, we as photographers copy lighting setups, we copy post-processing techniques, we buy actions and presets to duplicate the work of others, and we often find inspiration in concepts and themes created by photographers who have come before us. Stravinsky, the man whose work was a bombshell that single-handedly brought music into the modern era, famously said: "good artists copy; great artists steal." Now, he wasn't advocating theft of work; he would have certainly condemned something like Melania Trump's speech plagiarism. What he was advocating is a savvy awareness of the fact that what has been will be again and the great artist knows what bits of the past to pick from and incorporate into the present. So much of this is a question of timing. 

There's a famous scene in "The Untouchables" in which Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) engages in a shootout while a baby in a carriage rolls down a flight of steps in grave danger. The scene is tense, scary, and impressively effective. It's also completely lifted from "The Battleship Potemkin." (Beware that there's a fair amount of violence in both clips.)

​So, why did no one cry foul? Well, for one, the films are separated by 62 years; they weren't competing with one another. Moreover, it's a homage to one of the greatest films in history. Lastly, the scene is an element of a larger work; it's not the foundation upon which it rests. 

Let's look at a clear example of plagiarism. Below is "Adversity," by Fstoppers writer Robert Baggs. And below that is "End of Days," by Luke Strothman, which was undoubtedly taken from Baggs' concept.

https://500px.com/photo/52605304/end-of-days-by-luke-strothman

While Strothman's image is his own in the sense that he manipulated the camera controls and took it himself, I don't think anyone will argue where the idea came from. In this case, the theft of the idea is clear. But sadly, it's not illegal. Sure, we can shame those who steal ideas, we can denounce their work, we can shun them from the community, but legal recourse does not exist. 

Now, let's return to the Rembrandt, because whatever it is, it's not a case of the above. If you asked a museum curator to make a list of the top ten lost works of arts, I guarantee you the Rembrandt would be near the top. It should be unsurprising that the advertising agency chose it, and in that sense, there is no controversy. What threw me off is what I discussed in comparing the two films above: the timing. 62 years between works is far different than 6 months.

When I began my doctoral work, I didn't just begin writing my research. In fact, I didn't even think about my own work for two months. Instead, I scoured academia for every thread that was even tangentially related to my work, not only to build upon what had been done, but to also ensure that what I was doing was original and thus worthwhile both to myself and to the collective body of knowledge. If you open any doctoral thesis ever published, you'll see evidence of such work right at the beginning: the review of literature. 

Now, am I saying that the advertising agency should have embarked on some epic saga to the far reaches of the Internet to ensure that indeed, their concept and execution were original and not impinging upon the work of another? No, of course not. No one has time for that, unless this is their life for the next three years (i.e. a doctorate). But is a cursory examination in order? Well, that depends. 

To me, this sort of thing comes down to a question of intent and competition. We all copy to varying degrees, but rarely do we intend to cause damage in doing so. Nor do we often compete with the originator in doing so. It's when one (or both) of these two lines is crossed that we've gone afoul. 

What are your thoughts on this? When we do something highly specialized, do we have a responsibility to make an effort to check that it hasn't been done before? Let us know in the comments.