I do that sometimes, sometimes by accident, and sometimes not. You listed a good example, so I'll tell you why.
I make my own "stock" catalogs for common elements like that. I do a bunch of shots of something and make a few standard fixed versions of it to use in things. I might take 20 photos of the lamp and fix up about 3-5 versions of it for use. That way, if I need the same kind of street lamp, I can take one I already shot and fixed up, and concentrate on making the picture instead of spending the whole day going into the city to take a new photo of the same thing. After about 5 years, I might forget which one I actually used before so I just pick the one that fits the best with what I want to do.
Sometimes I might even do that for just a draft, with the intent of replacing it later, but there might be a reason along the way to decide to keep it.
Let's say for Amorphis I had this one dead plant that I took about 100 photos of, touched them up and saved them on my "leaves" disc, threw the plant away, and used a few on the art. Maybe on Novembre I needed the same kind of element so I took another one off the disc, so it might be a different item from the same shot, or possibly a sam one that i didn't notice.
If something it obviously a repeat, and exactly individually tailored to a certain piece, if I use an out take of it, I will make sure I alter or replace it. I've done that with faces too. I might have a face where the mouth is perfect for what I want, and I don't want to shoot a new one because i will never get the same effect in a million years as perfect as the one I already have. SO I might say to myself "well, i've obviously used this before so I better replace all the other parts so it has it's own identity...
Something like that anyway.
Trav
