What makes a photograph?

What makes a photograph? Can it still be considered yours if you didn't physically take the photo?
There are many discussions and thoughts on what makes a photograph your own. There isn't a defined right or wrong, only a personal opinion really having your own reasoning for your view of the matter.
With the brief given it states that we can source images/files and such from the internet for our project. Alongside this with the theme being space and place, for most the initial thought is of landscapes, now this isn't always the case as you can look at exteriors and interiors of a place, you don't need to have wide shots viewing a whole scene, you can have close ups focusing in on little details of an area looking at say, how it can change. This in mind, looking at exteriors one could take google maps, select the street view mode perhaps and look and selected buildings without having to visit the place and photograph them yourself. However not always does google maps show you what the place looks like currently, from looking at places myself I have found that they aren't all up-to-date though they can show you a span from when they took the first views at those places to the most recent that they have, showing you how they have changed over time. Could take screenshots of these views from the same angles then go to my location and photograph it from the same angle, as close as possible to show how a building changes over time and you see the ageing of its exteriors and how it can become more worn, however it could stay similar and the things around it have changed. It's possible to mould what has already been created to add to your own work.