Is There Really Such A Thing As An Original Image Or Idea

Recently me, a bunch of my classmates and one of my lecturers had a group discussion on the topic of whether we could argue that when it comes to Photography, the days of there being an original image or idea have long gone. This was a highly well pointed debate that brought up a lot of interesting opinions and statements that I would like to share with you all.

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When you think about it, everything has developed from something or other. if you look at the invention of the lightbulb and take note of how light bulbs are filled with gas that emits light when connected to electricity. You could say that this invention was copied from the sun.  Other things from the invention of the computer ( developed from a typewriter) , the invention of the television (developed from the projector) or even the invention of paper from the carvings on stone. There are all sorts of things that have been created from inspiration from something else.

My take on where Photography stands in this topic is that the days where it is easy to think of an idea that has never been done before and run with it have passed us. There are so many Photographer's in the world today, that it is so hard to actually be able to come up with an idea that no Photographer somewhere in the world has come up with already. Whilst it is easy for someone to take inspiration from someone's concept and make one of their own in response to that Photographer. It still mean's that they has to rely on the idea of someone else in order to make their work. The question is, Is it wrong though? Is there a line between taking inspiration from an idea and plagiarism?

After the debate was over, me and a couple of my peers continued this debate over lunch. Some highlights from the talk included comments such as....

• How in some people's eyes, even though a lot of ideas are copied from other things. There are still a lot of original things to be found that haven't been discovered as of yet. 

• One person statement that they believed that they couldn't be convinced that an idea can be original. You can think of something creatively and uniquely but at the end of the day it's still not an original idea. 

With two different opinions like this and the debate being an unresolvable one. Is there any such thing as an original idea?