Plagiarism in Photography | National Geographic Photographer Bob Holmes

About Bob Holmes

Robert Holmes career as one of the world’s most successful and prolific travel photographers has extended over 35 years. He was the first photographer to be honored twice by the Society of American Travel Writers with their Travel Photographer of the Year Award and he is the only photographer to be given the award 5 times, most recently for 2017.

His assignments have taken him from coverage of the 1975 British Everest Expedition for the London Daily Mail and Paris Match to searching for snow leopards in the remote valleys of western Nepal for National Geographic Magazine, trekking into the rain forests of Borneo with Penan tribesmen for Islands Magazine and crossing the Great Indian Desert on camel for Departures.

His passion for food and wine has lead to extensive work in those industries including the illustration of 9 books on wine and 6 cookbooks. More recently Bob has added film production to his talents and in partnership with Andrea Johnson has been producing videos for clients in the wine and hospitality industries.

Show Notes

1968, Bob had not known who Dorothea Lange was, but took a picture similar to her famous image of a mother. Even though he did not know the photo existed, people still compare the images and think he was influenced by Dorothea Lange’s photo.
Instagram has made landscape plagiarism much worse because of geotagging. Because people can see where good photos are taken, many people go to these locations and take the same image rather than their own.
A lot of photos are staged, especially in travel photography and photographic competitions.
When taking pictures of people, especially of other cultures, spend time with them. Treat people like people. Even if you don’t have much time or have communication issues, take the effort.
Don’t check your images while your taking photographs.
Know how to use your histogram. Here’s a past video on Advancing Your Photography with tips on using your histogram.