Who's been a naughty boy

Wildlife photographer of the year stripped of his award | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

 

What people will do... Its a shame he won with cheating. I don't about everyone else but I would feel so wrong inside that I won a HUGE prize for wildlife photography by using a tamed animal.

 

Not only a tame animal... but one trained for photography.

 

What a meathead! And I agree why would the wolf jump over like that when he could obviously squeeze through.

 

I followed this controversy for a number of weeks over at dPreview,where it spawned two threads, with over 250 posts. Here is the second thread
BBC Nature Photo Controversy (cont'd) [Page 1]: News Discussion Forum: Digital Photography Review

in which you can find the photographer's very cleverly-worded description of the photo, in which he very carefully never says the wolf is either wild or captive, and he never divulges that it is a game park, but talks about the "land's owner" welcoming him and his camera, and makes a specific reference to wild wolves coming back to that province in Spain, and how the area farmers wanted the wolves killed...all in all, a masterful statement accompanied the entry, with very carefully-worded passages to make the judges THINK ABOUT wild wolves, and referring to the game park not as anything, but instead talking about the "land's owner" welcoming him in his photographic endeavor.

Yet another faked wildlife photo, being passed off as the genuine article. Kind of sad, really.

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

According to the interview with the head judge the submitted caption specifically stated it was a "wild wolf".
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010: “No captive animals allowed" | PhotoRadar

 

I read the juror's simple, one-sentence summary that the caption said it was a wild wolf. HOWEVER, I have read the photographer's own,original caption information and that is not quite what it said!!! It did not *unequivocally* say that the wolf was wild--it talked about the reappearance of wild wolves in the province, and of local farmers and their desire to kill the wild wolves of the area, and it basically predisposed the listener(s) to THINK about wild wolves in the area, and then introduced the idea of a "land owner" who had wolves on a certain piece of property--which was NOT named as a wildlife park, but that "land owner" happened be the owner of a nature preserve named Canada Real. The original caption information was very,very cleverly worded, but there was no actual statement that said the wolf in the photo was a wild wolf....that was not stated!

I have read the original caption submitted multiple times,and while this one judge says very quickly that the caption said it was a wild wolf, the actual extended caption is very,very cleverly worded to make the reader/listener jump to the conclusion that it was a wild wolf. The use of the words wild wolves was not actually applied to THIS wolf; the "wild wolves" in that part of Spain are mentioned in the caption, but the fact that THIS wolf was living in a nature preserve was not mentioned. The original caption mentioned wild wolves coming back, local area farmers who wished to kill wild wolves--and then mentioned a "land owner" a few words later, causing the listener or reader of the caption to make the mental leap from wild wolves to wild wolves to the PICTURED WOLF, but the pictured wolf was not described clearly and plainly as a wild wolf; the statement itself was basically a load of bull%&8+,and counted on preconditioning and people's nature to "fill in the blanks" and conclude that this wolf, too, was wild!

If the judges were to have had the caption READ ALOUD to them by another person, as a panel, it is obvious after having read the original caption that they would almost assuredly draw the "wild wolf" inference from the cleverly-worded caption. The caption information contained some true statements, and mentions of wild wolves, and farmers with a desire to kill wild wolves, and then very cleverly segued into the wolf in the entered photograph and how the the photographic process went, but the original caption I read did not call "THIS" wolf a wild animal....that was to be inferred by the reader. Incredibly disingenuous!!!

Anyway, the photographer entered another almost identical frame,shot at the same location,of the same wolf, into another contest,and it can be seen here:

Photo Competition Winners - Nature photography - images from the Wild Wonders of Europe.

 

It is sad but it is not surprising. Society has been teaching us for years that it is okay to cheat. "Just don't get caught."

 

Despite what the photographer said, the competition rules explicitly prohibit the use of animal models, according the The Guardian article.

 

I wonder if it's considered "cheating" when I catch a wild snake and then pose it for photographs... You can't really take any outstanding photographs of snakes without posing them.