We’ve all been witness to it – especially within our industry. You see one model do something new or unique that resonates with their audience – and immediately you see a large number of others mimic, copy, replicate and regurgitate the exact same thing in effort to try to benefit from that formula.
Imagine when Instagram got real popular and dozens of other programmers released similar apps to try to take a piece of that pie. Are any still around? We do not seek out nor do we need the 20th regurgitated knockoff version of something.
The first is the one that resonates with us. This is why professional photographers work so hard to define a unique style and brand to their work. If all they did was copy everyone else’s work they would never successfully establish their own vision and direction.
Now this is not to say that you cannot find inspiration from others – we all do.
But to blatantly replicate what others are doing is creating a tremendous amount of useless noise in our industry.
The bigger problem we run into with that is when there is a significant amount of noise – most people just stop paying attention. And when people stop paying attention – the industry shrinks as a result. The pie gets smaller.
James Patrick
jamespatrick.com
instagram @jpatrickphoto
