Wildlife photographer stripped of award | Hacker News Reader

Wildlife photographer stripped of award

news.bbc.co.uk

36 pointsprat20 comments

Here's the first source to break the story, a nature magazine called Suomen Luonto: http://www.suomenluonto.fi/bbcs-nature-photo-competition-jud...

It includes a detailed photographic comparison of the evidence. It's pretty shoddy work by the BBC not to include a link to this, or credit them at all for breaking the story.

The photo stops fast motion during the night, so enough lighting was used to get a shutter speed of at least 1/100th. From the lighting/shadowing, we can see that at least a couple of artificial light sources are present. What is the likelihood that a wildlife photographer would set up for such a shot in anticipation of any animal, much less a wild wolf, jumping over the gate. Given that the exposure seems just about perfect, we have to assume that lighting levels were set for about three feet above the gate -- this rules out animals not able/likely to jump it. How likely is a wild animal to venture near such a set-up (with its associated human smells) when it could just as easily have jumped the stone wall? So, without identifying the wolf in the photo, we can determine that the shot is almost certainly staged with a compliant animal.

Edit: It's a really, really good shot though.

I agree it's a great shot. I can't really speak to whether it is fake or not. You make some good points about the perfect and complete lighting.

I've been lucky enough to spend time with wildlife photographers in the field. As far as I can tell they spend almost all their time creating and waiting for perfect opportunities. We spent time scouting out locations and doing test shoots to figure out what would work in that location. Looking at different angles so the background and lighting at that time of day was ideal. It also quickly became my understanding that professional wildlife photographers have a crazy knack for choosing appropriate settings (exposures lighting etc). Since opportunities are so rare and perfect moments fleeting... I guess that makes sense. All of that being said I don't remember any actual photos being taken at night. At dawn and sunset, almost always.

I have also been in the field with a guy who took his own photographs for a national geographic article. It was a wildlife and nature article not human interest. For his one article he took 50000+ shots. Then national geographic would use approximately 10-20 shots. This was back when digital was still gimmicky and professionals were using slide film. So they were developing 1500 rolls of slide film... this all seems so crazy now-a-days.

I'd be interested in how many photos people take now. Having to remove the film and put in new roll cold kill a wildlife shot. So you were often limited to 36 shots. The cameras used to create a horrid sound loading new film - the nicer the camera the louder and more obnoxious the sound. (not really but it seemed like it)

EDIT: Grammar and rolls of slide film ~ Added a bit.

As a follow up, I didn't explicitly state one of my points. When you are taking 50000 shots per project you only need one to come out perfect. So when you look at award winning shots like this it could be a 1 / 1000000 shot. It's seems possible he takes a similar amount of shots per project all year long, year after year.

The interesting part is taking a night shot with a flash of a fox jumping a fence - you probably only get one chance. Or his setup only got one chance. I can't imagine the fox is going to get anywhere near that same spot again.

You raise a good point. If we take the sum total of all images shot during the year by all photographers entering the competition, it is probably in the millions. So, events with million-to-one odds are likely represented in the very non-random sampling of entries.

Shutter speed has nothing to do with the flash duration. You can have a shutter speed of 1/10th sec (to get background light) and the flash that's 1/10,000th sec to light the wolf.

You're right. I was wrong in my thought process about this, and it was probably dark enough out that there wouldn't have been any ghosting from the dragged out shutter.

Add-on: If the light source was constant (not strobes), then I think the shutter speed argument stands. However, I can't imagine that this wasn't done with strobes. Furthermore, that the background was exposed at all suggests some shutter drag?

I am realizing that I need to spend more time playing with my cheap off-camera flash set-up.

I'm re-posting a deleted comment because I found it to be of merit:

"Actually, in the original story about the photo the photographer claimed to have set up everything in advance, and used some sort of sensor to have it automatically fire when the wolf jumped over it; he may have said that he'd previously seen them doing so."

This is a scenario I had not considered, not having done nature photography before. Perhaps I will set up some strobes and a motion sensor next time I throw rotting food into my backyard to see if it disappears by morning.

If you've ever looked at hunting magazines this happens a lot. Hunters use light triggered shutters and flashes for scouting purposes.

http://www.cabelas.com/trail-cameras-1.shtml

Interesting. I'll have to see if devices like these can trigger my Canon's shutter.

It's funny, I thought this was an odd choice when the winner was originally announced. I felt the judges were overly moved by the presence of a human element (the fence) in the shot, especially considering the emphasis on wildlife photography. I doubt if bears in a dump would have been considered, or monkeys on a safari vehicle. But I think this shot evoked a certain fairytale imagery in the minds of the judges, and they let themselves be led by their emotional response without fully considering the criteria. The strange thing is that the rules don't necessarily invalidate the image, even if the allegations are true. Images using models are allowed, but must be declared. If he had declared that he used a model (and it's still not proven that he did), his photo would still be eligible. Besides, some of the leading wildlife photographers/videographers in the world use elaborately staged sets (ant colonies set behind glass, known tame animals in game preserves, etc.) to achieve more "realistic" images. What was the objective of this contest?

I find the fact that the name of the wolf is "Ossian" kind of fascinating because that's also the name of a fabricated poet from the 18th century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossian

It's like they specifically named the wolf (tongue in cheek) to do fabrications.

I wish they gave a hint where to find the source material.

The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/20/wolf-wildl..., has more content including this paragraph:

The organisers were alerted to suspicions about the image by Spanish photographers who recognised the wolf and the location as the Cañada Real wildlife park. Wolf experts also questioned why the wolf would jump the gate when a wild animal was more likely to squeeze between the bars.

"Spanish photographers who recognised the wolf ..."

why would someone be that careless if he wanted to commit a fraud??

And if they've identified the wolf as "Ossian", why don't they talk to the owners (?) of the trained wolf?

Presumably because they're not likely to find the denials of people paid by their adversary very convincing.

Other photos in the competition http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions...

in one reality, they suspect it's a phony during the judging process and do NOT award it a prize.

in this reality they didn't suspect a problem during the actual judging, award him the prize, take away his prize and ban him for life.

seems to me like the judging panel screwed up.

The point is that people brought it to their attention that the wolf and the location looked similar to a captive wolf and the area where it is located. The judges had no way of knowing this. It was only with this evidence that were able to make their decision to take away his prize.

The point still stands that the life ban would not have been handed down if they had found he had broken the rules before awarding him the first prize. The life ban can only be to save face having erroneously awarded him the prize.

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