Appropriating Another Photographer's Style

(l Jason Florio, r Matthew Mahon)

The question comes down to this: How can you justify ripping-off another photographer’s style? It has come to my attention that Redux photographer Matthew Mahon took Jason Florio’s well-known way of shooting portraits and copied it for a Fast Company shoot.

It seems to me to be a direct rip-off of Florio's way of shooting. All the more surprising since Jason Florio is a multi-award winning photographer, whose portraits and style is well known. His Gambia work has appeared on the cover of PDN, been awarded a Lucie and more. In fact, he was asked to use that specific style for the AARP shoot. Why does one photographer think they can just appropriate another photographer's visual style for their own?

I have posed the question to photographer Matthew Mahon and the Photo Editor of Fast Company as well as Marcel Saba of Redux (since the shoot is featured on their website and Mahon is one of their photographers), and will report any and all responses.

The full look at Jason's AARP

And Matthew's Fast Company

I’d be interested in knowing what you think.