The Molotov Man and Crytomnesia

After reading the article “On The Rights Of The Molotov Man” in which a painter, Joy Garnett, uses a part of a documentary photographer, Susan Meiselas, photo. A copy right debate is raised between who has the right to use this photo of a man in mid throw of a Molotov. After reading both viewpoints my quick and very right response is that Susan is looking too deeply into her own art and tacking on too much responsibility. I biased this on the fact that there is big difference between a filmmaker and a photographer, which is a filmmaker “makes” an image while a photographer “takes” an image. All Susan did was be in the right place and the right time to push the button on her camera and “take” the photo. That it, that’s all she did. This photo she took is not “her” art, it’s her artistic eye to see when, where and what makes a good photo but as soon as one of the elements in the photo is changed from the original print then its beyond her artistic eye and into the next artist’s view. The artistic ability to “take” a photo is way different then what a filmmaker has to do to “make” that same image. If Susan was a filmmaker and she did “make” that image then she is entitled to licensing fees and control of the use of her art. In the end the question still stands, “who owns the right to this man’s struggle?” My answer, nether one of them, but Susan is the one complaining and demanding money from Joy. Hence, she is in the wrong, not Joy?

I never knew that Crytomnesia meant the phenomenon when two different people came up with the same concept without ever meeting or being exposed to each others work. I bring this up because as my group were brain storming for a concept to shoot for our long take I came up with this idea of lost tourist who stops at a bust to for directions and watches as a native jumps on the back of another person and rides off. One of our group members, who is from Australia, weren’t there when I originally thought of this idea but later after I described it to her she said that she had seen the exact same thing back home in Australia. So it stuck out to me that that there really is a word that means this exact phenomenon.