In The Field Photography Blogs: Plagiarism
Over the past two years I've noticed a handful of photographers starting to copy my blog and basically write the same articles. One of whom outright copy and pasted at least half a dozen articles of mine verbatim while substituting out the photos for his own. When it comes to copyright, almost all professional photographers respect each other's work and don't download the photos then claim it as their own so shouldn't this apply to writing as well? It's one thing to take an idea and add your own twists to it but when you take my original writing and just swap out a few words why am I even bothering to write this stuff? I get that writing is not particularly fun nor easy for most people but you've got to put the work in. Landscape photographers are not just unimaginative when it comes to the artwork but also marketing apparently. Don't be lazy!
As for the photographer who copy and pasted my work, it got some of my pages de-indexed off of Google for a day so I noticed it right away. I contacted him and he blamed it on the SEO person that he had just fired. To his credit, he fessed up and deleted all the content at my request. But the lesson here is that there are no winners when it comes to copying people's work. It's not a good look for you and it hurts my performance.
When it comes to mimicking photography and doing similar photos, at least you have to travel somewhere and put in the work to make the photo. Photography is something fun that we can all enjoy. With writing, it actually requires some thinking to put words on a blank page. Anyone can sit at home and just copy and paste. I could copy and paste Shakespeare pretty quickly, maybe even get some web traffic from it but that doesn't make me the second coming of Shakespeare. If you find the need to copy and paste for SEO traffic you should ask yourself why that is? It's fine to have similar themes. There are only so many topics worth writing about after all but beyond that all the writing should be your own words. If you're really an authority or expert on a topic then it should be fairly easy to write your own words. If you don't have your own words then take the time to educate yourself on the topic before coming back to it or maybe just move onto something that you're more knowledgeable about.
Storm Mountain, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
The Canadian Rockies will always occupy a special place in my heart as my parents took me on a trip here when I was a young child. Less than a decade later, my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease so the following two decades until my dad's passing was tumultuous to say the least. This photo, Storm Mountain, is dedicated to the memory of my dad.
Year Photographed: 2012
Awards: 16th Annual Black & White Spider Awards - Professional, Nature Category (Nominee)
Foggy Morning, Mendocino Headlands State Park, California
Awaking an hour before sunrise, I found myself on a narrow trail along the Mendocino Headlands with steep drop-offs on both sides which ended on this promontory overlooking large seastacks in a sea of thick fog. I didn't see any other photographers out there on this morning as they were probably sleeping in. When I see fog I embrace it and try to convey a sense of loneliness.
Year Photographed: 2019
The Wedge Waves Black and White, Newport Beach, California
Reports of record-setting waves along Orange County's coastline led me to the famed surf break, The Wedge. Upon arrival I found out that a bodyboarder had died here earlier in the morning as he crashed against the jetty. The waves were very intense to say the least; a few of which came crashing ashore and got my camera wet.
Year Photographed: 2009
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