----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob W" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
This is not true. It is a very common technique for people who are
learning
to draw, and recommended in most decent books about drawing. It helps you
to
understand how the other person worked, how their arm moved, what the
pressure was like, how it feels to make a line in a certain way that you
might not do by yourself. Try it sometime.
Sure. You don't learn photography by copying someone elses work in the
minutest details. You don't learn how Cartier-Bresson worked by arranging
the same scenes he shot. You don't learn photographic techniques either by
copying someone elses work. You won't learn faster to operate a camera by
shooting Ansel Adams scenes. You may copy Adams techniques but you don't
need his exact images to learn the zone system.
The drawing analogy was to illustrate the copying. You could just as well
take a picture of a Picasso and claimed you made the image. But that doesn't
make you a painter, and certainly not a creative one.
Nobody was on that mountain to learn photography. I won't even call them
photographers because there were zero creative input. They are just camera
operators. You don't learn Ansels choiches by simply walk up to his tripod
holes. You could learn something if you do not step in his tripod holes but
were in the general area. See what options you had and you would almost
certainly come out with something very different.
Pål
