No not really. What I'm really get fed up with is all those artist that claim that they're not inspired by other and that they seek to do their own stuff. Unless you've been a cavedweller for the last 40 years since your birth with no contact what so ever with the outside world, and someone some day just drop either a set painting equipment, a set of camera gear, paper and pencil or a sulpture's kit at the entrance to your cave, you're inspired by and influenced by other, wether you like it or not. None of us is most likely gonna invent the wheel all over in a totally new configuration and still make it work smoothly.
As with 99,99 % of all art I've seen, falls into either of two categories. One is for those who holds talent and skill, and show that they saw something that they liked and inspired them, but went out and tried to improve on what they saw, and the other is the crowd that desperately seek attention for crap that is less worth then toiletpaper. Sad to say, many of these deceptions are sold by galleries, auctions or dealers for sums that don't reflect the value of the art.
So what's wrong with saying: "Hey, I'm really inspired by Leonardo da Vinci and William Blake, and my goal is to combine their style and visions of those two into my photography. Or vice versa, that it's the work of Ansel Adams and David Bailey that inspires me, and want to combine the styles of those two into my paintings"?
As I see it, this is also the reason why so many untalented monkeys have been rated artist, like Jackson Pollock, a drunken talentless paintthrower who spilled paint on a larg canvas, and called it abstract expressionism. Well, we can all paint abstract expressionism because it don't demand any thing of us. There's no rules to ties us down, and make us strive to create something unique within the given limitations. It's also the same when you elevate snapshot to fine art photography. If that's fine art, well, then every drunken idiot with a smart phone on a weekend night is an artist. A direct result of thinking they're unique.
For what is an artist? Is it just a idiot with a dergree in splashing paint on canvas or randomly pointing his/her camera at a subject and pressing the shutter? NO!
An artist is someone who excells at their given craft. Someone who's above the general masses, and who inspires other to strive to excell. They are the one who shows us that they've mastered the essentiall skillset that is required to say that you can paint, draw, make a photograph or create music. And until we've mastered that set of skills, we're all just someone who paints, draw, make a photograph or create music. An avarege joe with a set of basic skills. Would you eat the food of a chef, if the chef would just throw in the ingredience in a pot, with no thought to how they taste or harmonize with each other, and after wards just drop the result on a plate for you? Does a burnt pizza taste any better, if the person who made it called him/her self a chef and said that the burnt pizza symbolized the global warming of the planet, or if you where served garbage and were told that what's on you plate symbolized the rotten attitude of sosiety? No, crap is crap, and noe of us would eat any thing that is not well made, and it's the same with art. We eat art with our eyes and mind, but we accept thrash for food.