Plagiarism in the Photography World
This isn't my normal style of doing things, but how many times does it have to happen before action is taken? I'm Pissed, and you should be too. Let's get this out there for those that don't know it yet: Copying and pasting someones, words, images and work in general is wrong. We were taught that in middle school and it was heavily reiterated throughout high school and in college. It is not ok to take credit for someone else's hard work. Are we clear?
That being said, this sort of thing happens constantly. You will find it common among unknown "photographers," or faux-togaphers around the world, it doesn't mean it's ok. It is just as wrong. They take peoples images and blog posts and pretend that the work is theirs. You need to be careful of this. Now you don't usually see the industry 'leaders' doing this sort of thing....oh wait, yes. Yes we do. It infuriates me and majority of the photo world to boiling blood levels.
These rockstars that you probably know by name at this point, sell you workshops, and books and actions and overlays-and you buy them. These people are held on pedestals and in such high regard that fans that have sworn to idolize them refuse to acknowledge what they just got caught doing is wrong and will try to defend their idols. That's ok, i understand that, because it brings you down too. Not only did that person let you down by blatantly lying to you, but anyone you told about them and spoke of their in such a high regard, was lied to as well. its a shitty chain.
Her Twitter thievery.
The person who got caught by the "Photo Stealers" <-go like their facebook if you want these type of thieves caught, is the beloved Jasmine Starr...again. A month or maybe two ago, she was nabbed for taking tweets of others and not 'retweeting' them like normal people, but instead copying them and pretending that she came up with them so that she would be the funny one, and she would end up with the extra followers etc. Ok, so you don't think that is a big deal-but that is where the problem begins. She came out and apologized. Some of her righteous defenders stepped up and said it wasn't wrong, but at the end of the day taking credit for someone else's work is wrong.
Flash forward to this morning, when facebook went abuzz with news of this again...another big name caught stealing blog posts. Who could it be? I thought it was Doug Gordon again as he has quickly become know as a frequent word thief, <- link to the PS Blog page dedicated to all his stealing and thievery! (There is so much there i am not sure how he is still in business,) but alas, it was Jasmine Star! Fitting how the name her magazine is titled "Exposed."
It is such a sad day when a creative person, has to steal things from other people to be....creative! These people, these known names are validating all the thieves out there by doing the same thing that if it were to happen to them, they would publicly go after the person taking from them. Of course she issued another apology, but when you are apologizing for the same fuck up (pardon my french,) for the second time, it means you didn't learn the first time, and your apology was bullshit. Your words mean nothing now, and your reputation is going down the drain because of it. I wouldn't hire a wedding photographer that i found out to be a thief. How could anyone trust them? I couldn't.
I bet you are curious as to what i am referencing if you haven't seen it yet. Let me enlighten you. The blog posts have been removed (of course,) but photo stealers has screen shots of her site to share with the world. Technology is great huh. Here is the original posters article on "Capturing Stunning Backlit Portraits During the Golden Hour." And here is the original post of backlighting info. *Now here is ANOTHER example of her thievery in action (its a cached copy.) and here is the actual blog that it came from....in popular mechanics! Unbelievable right!* No it isn't word for word..well not all of it-that would be too super obvious, she added a few of her own cutesy things in there too. The one with the colored text that is red was eliminated after the edit, green is new, yellow was altered.
Jasmine Star's re-edit of stolen blog in an attempt to make it hers still.
Now after it being revealed she jacked someone (Christopher O'Donnell,) blog post, she actually went in and edited it...but kept it up. Oh you want to see how she changed it? Here, let Photo Stealers help with that.
She later removed it, when it was pointed out that she edited it, and still didn't edit out the plagiarism correctly...followed by an apology of sorts. It wasn't public-it was in a private group, so i am not sure how much of an apology it is. Did you know she went to law school apparently? Yeah, let that one simmer for a minute. While it simmers, here's her 'admittance and apology.'
Jasmine Star's Apology (again.)
Maybe she's going with all publicity is good publicity..but that is garbage. I don't know about you guys but i want to see some action from her sponsors and from creativeLIVE who sells her workshops. Any one of her "status," who has sponsors and other such things, that are out there teaching people how to be like them and do what they do, needs to be held accountable. A simple "boohoo, i was wrong (again,)" isn't going to cut. How many times are we just going to accept the withdrawal of the blog and a shit apology for being a queen (or king,) con artist? If we stay silent-it keeps happening. Let's shut down the thieves and the liars and let's find new role models.
Honest ones, the non lying kind. you know, the kind that kick ass.
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