Bialobrzeski complained to the museum's leaders, who studied the matter and decided that the "photographs in question are independent of each other." The show went up as planned, and Bialobrzeski went public, denouncing the Zielskes and telling Photo District News' Web site that the pair had actually called years earlier for advice about exposures, film, and vantage points. The Zielskes, who claimed in an open letter that the images "had nothing in common," were soon fending off a charge that hasn't been leveled in fine-art circles for a while: plagiarism.