o a bit of an internal discussion

my 2nd guesthouse, assi ghat, varanasi, march 2012

i am in a dilemma. the topic I thought about today thought a friend of mine before. when she was in varanasi. now she is not anymore here. but i am here. I want to earn money. the topic is good and interesting and important.

I wanna do it for a small newspaper, text, one image. she wants to do it extensive. intense lot of pictures. different publications for sure. would i prefer hers? i guess yes. can i do it? no.

so what to do?

i always see all this photographers in a war. coming in a trouble, following the same traces ending up with the same picture. who had the idea?

i guess it is about the detail. sometimes. depends. everybody takes pictures of football but pep bonet took pictures of football players without leg. everybody takes portraits of people on the street, but bresson did in such a way you never forget the faces. etc. etc. that’s photography internal discussion.

boy, ghat, varanasi, march 2012

i always steal ideas. content and visually. I go out, look, read, listen.  that’s research I guess. but when do you stop stealing? When somebody talks next to you about a shop that sells steps to the moon or when somebody just mentions there is a shop somewhere in the world. Do you stop because a stranger writes it in a paper or because it is your friend?

and what is stealing. can I claim copyrights on my visual style as well. I take pictures with people standing in the middle so you are not allowed to. Nowadays it is said there is nothing new. everything is done. In writing, in music, in photography. i am always wondering if they said this already 200 years ago. not with photography, maybe with writing. and then came schiller.