Inspiration

Part of my current photography class includes identifying photographers I like.  To do that, I googled great photos or something of the sort, and I found Irving Penn, who just died last year.

This is one of his photographs:

It made me understand how inspiration flows through everything.  Remember this?  I took this at the prompt I got from a photographer-instructor in a previous class.

Now, I'm not saying mine is as good as his, but it's a little uncanny how similar they are since I hadn't seen that one before tonight.

Richard Avedon, a famous Vogue photographer, photographed a model holding an umbrella leaping off a curb in the 50s, I think.  That photo is inspired by a photo by a photographer from an Eastern European country. And recently there was a spread in Vogue of current top models in fabulous gowns grouped with some on ladders.  And that photo was inspired by an Irving Penn photo from the 40s of that period's top models grouped in fabulous gowns, with some on ladders.

Nothing's new under the sun.

And that's okay because our personalities add to each iteration.

Amazing, isn't it?