You're example's a bit confusing --- why copy a file to itself?
If you're talking about uploading photos, take a look at move_uploaded_file() and the $_FILES array in the manual.
The concept is basically that the form recognizes the multi-part encoding, the file goes to a temp dir, and then you copy it to a permanent location...I think move_uploaded_file does it with a bit less code than copy(), IIRC....