Is one picture of a mountain derivative of another? Are two pictures of a specific human being derivative? No, they are individual creations, even if made using the same camera by the same photographer. Each is an individual work of art, the vision of a particular person capturing a unique, unrepeatable moment.

They are not derivatives, because the photographers are different people and the time and place were decades separated from one another. To call them derivative is to belittle the humans experiencing the events.

In the same way that Cassini was a derivative of Galileo, but around Saturn and with a working antenna. Or Perseverence is a derivative of Curiosity, which is a derivative of Opportunity. Or philosophy is just footnotes on Plato. Or classical music is everyone trying to escape from the shadow of Bach. Or fantasy is just a poorer version of Tolkien.

I suppose there's truth to that, but it unfairly and unhelpful minimizes the accomplishment, and it collapses the awe that the article talks about. If you are viewing the photos as essentially the same, you are shortchanging yourself, because Artemis was not a means for producing photos, those are more like artifacts of production. Again, that would collapse the awe of Artemis.

(Also, technically, I don't think that Artemis is a derivative of Apollo, more like a re-implementation from scratch.)

Must be tough to enjoy any photo if you see it that way. Even if they launched to Mars, are new photos derivatives of the robot and probe cameras?