November 16, 2016

How can this be called stalking or trolling?

One Instagramming woman — with 700,000 followers — has photographed  herself in beautiful places around the world and another woman went to the same places and photographed herself in similar clothes in the same places:
Diana only has about 3,600 Instagram followers — and has since deleted all her posts and made her account private — but Bullen provided side-by-side screengrabs of several of the most egregious copies. It quickly becomes apparent that this is the Single White Female remake for the Instagram era.

Not only are the outfits similar, but Diana has also taken the time and spent the money required fly all over the world — from the Greek islands to the Sahara Desert — to troll her more famous counterpart, which is some real dedication to her cause, whatever that cause may be....
Isn't the point of travel writing and photography to persuade the reader to travel to the same places and see these sights for yourself? Travelers often stand in front of the same beautiful views and take very similar photographs. It seems as though Bullen's gripe is that her persuasion through photographs has been very effective.
Bullen wrote that she and Diana had been in contact, explaining, “I believe her word, she is NOT a stalker and this labelling needs to stop, so does the hate messages.” Bullen also claimed that she did not create this story as a publicity stunt and said that Diana was “copying and stealing someone’s art to a ridiculously creepy level.” 
Well, it sure works as a publicity stunt. Thanks for putting that idea in my head. And I would not otherwise have noticed Bullen's website, but it sure is pretty.

I'm not buying the stalking/trolling argument. At some point, you might have copyright infringement, but I'm not opining on where that point is except to say that the travel industry would be screwed if the first person to frame a shot of a scenic place could bar everyone else from taking the same shot.

11 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

― Oscar Wilde

buwaya said...

The boyfriend is a pretty good though rather conventional photographer.
They do know how to pick fashion-magazine locations.

Roughcoat said...

The blond is pretty, with a nice ass and gams, but her chest is too small.

What scenery?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Roughcoat said...

The blond is pretty, with a nice ass and gams, but her chest is too small.

A woman who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10

Dust Bunny Queen said...

the travel industry would be screwed if the first person to frame a shot of a scenic place could bar everyone else from taking the same shot.

Right! All those people pretending in photos to hold up the leaning tower of Pisa would be in violation of ...something.

lgv said...

Only one person has the right to photograph the leaning tower of Pisa in the background with them pretending to hold it up. All others should prosecuted and have their images removed.

It's pretty hard to stalk someone if you never in the same place at the same time. I remember a guide to Yosemite and San Fran where it shows you the image and tells you exactly where to stand to get the same famous shots. It literally had footprint overlays exactly where you needed to be.

I can't see any copyright issues with what was done, at least not with regard to the Bullen.

FullMoon said...

Speaking of the tower of Pisa, one of my favorite criminals is the guy who sold it to a scrap metal dealer, skipped town, came back later and sold it a second time to the first dealers rival.

William said...

She should duplicate the shots but use a garden gnome instead of herself.

BN said...

"How can this be called stalking or trolling."

Forget it, Perfesser, it's the Internet.

Sydney said...

Who's taking the photographs? Surely not the women, they are always the center of the photo. At any rate, the blonde photos have better framing and editing.

mikee said...

I for one await the redhead Irish version, the dark skinned Nigerian version, the coy Japanese version, the raunchy Chinese version, the spicy Indian version.....

Collect them all!