Copy?

Peter Bialobrzeski had this to say on Joerg's post on plagiarism today:

"In the end, whether the term is plagiarism...(I learned [that] the hard way; legally, at least here in Germany, it is next to impossible to use the term, you ll get sued and loose (sic), because a photograph is always a separate event (abgeschlossenes Ereignis)."

I once read an interview with Ryan McGinley where he was asked why he photographs, I think, and his response, quoted loosely and on memory alone went something like, "I photograph because no one else is taking the photos I'm taking."

I really liked that for it's simplicity. It seemed like the perfect artist statement to me (that one could get away with once established) because it hit upon the quaint nature of why I, and I think a great many others photograph - to explore, to create, to be surprised, to improve.

It seemed like a natural sibling of Winogrand's "I photograph to see what things look like photographed."