Seen It Before vs Completely Original

I found these two blog posts interesting and worth contemplating head to head:

“It is all too easy to cry copy-cat or rip-off and refrain from wondering why it is so vital for your appreciation that ’something hasn’t been done before’. Of course I can’t and won’t claim to be free of this obsession, but I notice an increasing hesitation in myself to follow the lure of the game, and a need to think about different things to look for in a work. Novelty is nice for the novice, but once the jaded feeling of ‘been there, seen that’ crops us, it is time to reconsider my responsibility – if you can call it that – as viewer.”
—-Via, Mrs. Deane.

vs

“Platon has an entire portfolio of photographs, mostly portraits, titled Service in last week’s edition of The New Yorker. An extended selection of images can be seen online.”

“Listening to an audio file on The New Yorker’s site, I learned that Platon is now officially signed on as a staff photographer.”

“I haven’t heard anything about this before and frankly I’m surprised. It’s not that I think Platon is a bad portrait photographer but in my mind I don’t see how Platon can replace Avedon. His portraits shot from below against a stark white background are too indebted to Avedon’s. Maybe the magazine doesn’t see their selection as a replacement for Avedon but I certainly do. ”
—-Via, Horses Think.