Influences of plagarism

About two weeks ago we started a conversation in class about a picture that was turned into a painting. Many people in class believed that it was a display of plagarism. Well to me I'm not sure that I would put it that way. I think that if someone takes a picture and you use it as inspration in a paitnting then it should not be considered plagarisim. For example if you were to take and paint a picture of the landscape of a forest or maybe paint a picture of a buliding would that be considered plagarism? I do not think so. I think you are just taking someone elses idea and making it into something of your own. If there weren't pictures and different scenery to paint what would there be. Alot of paintings are inspired by something, and if we did not have those inspirational pieces alot of the worlds famous paintings would not be here today. So I really dont think that disscussion we had in class was a case of plagarism.