You may have already heard of the photographer who won the wildlife photographer of the year, only to have it stripped after it was discovered the main subject matter in his photo, was in fact a domestic trained animal, not a wild one. It was a massive coup, in that this was one of the most well respected and anticipated photography competitions in the world, and to have the judges duped with some cleaver angles and perhaps a little digital trickery, was astonishing.
Well its happened again, in possibly an even bigger photo competition. Today, the organisers of World Press photo announced the disqualification of an entry that was originally placed third in the sports category section of the competition. After the image was declared a finalist it became aware to the attention of world press photo that the story had violated a major contest rule. After requesting the RAW image files, it became evident that an element had been removed from an original photograph.
This is outrageous in the World Press Photo circles. The biggest photojournalist awards in the world, and a faked image has made it through to be placed third before having to be removed from the contests site and the entrant disqualified.
Of course these images where altered digitally, as it is so easy to so on computers now days, but this is no new feat. People forget that photographers have always faked images to result in the desired effect. One of Australia’s most famous exploration photographers, Frank Hurly, was a known concoctor of images, never letting an ordinary picture get in the way of what could be a fantastic story. During his coverage of WWI he was in a bitter battle with his historical counterpart that wanted everything to be true to form and fact, Hurley however stated it was impossible to convey the sheer scale of such a battle without the use of composites. Often putting different skies, bomb explosions, soldiers, artillery and even planes into the original picture to create a more dramatic picture and a better story.
However its not just us mere mortal photographers who are effected, arguably one of the most well known photographers in the world, has recently been fired from his job. Peter Parker, Spider Man to those who aren’t up on their Marvel comic knowledge, photographer by day, super hero by night. Has been fired from his photography position with the Daily Bugle after, you guessed it, being caught photoshoping his images! In a new edition of "the amazing Spider man" Peter Parker will be fired, as he struggles in both his super and regular life.
Although I must say, in a world of economic downturn and uncertain jobs, if a Spidey cant hold down a job, what hope do the rest of us have!!?
Keep an eye out for The unemployment issue — “Amazing Spider-Man #623"
click here to read more about the World Press Photo disqualification.
