German photographer Michael Wolf received an honorable mention in this year's World Press Photo Contest for his project "A Series of Unfortunate Events".
Critics have been questioning whether Wolf's images taken off google street view are worthy of such an accolaide. It recieved an honorable mention in the contemporary issues category because, as the organisation says it is trying to "promote a free and unrestricted exchange of information"
Wolf has responded by describing his creative process with the British Journal of Photography "I use a tripod and mount the camera, photographing a virtual reality that I see on the screen. It's a real file that I have, I'm not taking a screenshot. I move the camera forward and backward in order to make an exact crop, and that's what makes it my picture. It doesn't belong to Google, because I'm interpreting Google; I'm appropriating Google. If you look at the history of art, there's a long history of appropriation."
View Wolf's series alongside the rest of this years winners at http://www.worldpressphoto.org/
