I’ve been following a fellow creative for a month or so and genuinely liked their work. If I like what someone is doing, I’ll usually say so, and I commented positively on several of their pieces.
They later offered to explain their process, and I took them up on it. What I learned was that they were downloading freely available photographs made by other people and remixing them into new compositions without disclosing where the source material came from.
That bothered me.
I’m a photographer, but I’ve also worked in wood, metal, fabric, graphics, and other media. I don’t object to collage, remix, appropriation, or even AI-generated work simply because of the tools involved. What matters to me is transparency.
If you use somebody else’s photographs, say so. If you collaborate with another artist, credit them. If AI generated part of the work, disclose that. Then let people judge the finished piece on its actual merits.
I’ve collaborated with other artists, and my wife has taken photographs that appear on my feed. I disclose those things because authorship matters.
What bothered me here wasn’t the act of remixing. It was allowing the work to be presented in a way that could reasonably lead people to believe the underlying photographs were the creator’s own. To me, that crosses an ethical line.
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