Last month, the New York-based photographer Sze Tsung Leong was on location in La Paz, Bolivia, when he received a phone message from his New York gallerist, Yossi Milo. It had come to Milo’s attention that a Canadian photographer was exhibiting a series of works in Vancouver that bore a striking similarity to an ongoing series by Leong. An image of the Canale della Giudecca in Venice? The Canadian photographer had it, and from the same perspective as Leong’s. A cracking ice floe in Iceland? An Egyptian pyramid? A Japanese shrine? He had those, too, all cropped and composed in similar fashion.
Yesterday we posted a story about the similarities between a series of images called “Sacred & Secular” by Vancouver photographer David Burdeny, and a series called “Horizons” shot earlier by Sze Tsung Leong. Leong has reportedly challenged Burdeny for copying. Burdeny denies it, saying the similarities arose because he happened to shoot from some of the same tourist spots. And, he added, photographers–even famous ones–often mimic each other’s work. So why single out Burdeny?
