Cloning

Hmmm! with such competitions the rules are the rules arguably especially so once you are in the realms of internationally recognised ones. Their game, their rules!

Having said that the alteration does aesthetically improve it and makes me wonder if such entries should allow for submitting a before & after pair..........though as the whistle blower was able to show an almost identical image the winner then becomes one based on PP skills.

And in this case if there was a group of togs all bunched together all getting just about the same image hence the one doing the cloning did so as a deliberate ploy to stand out from the crowd and circumvent the rules, a risk he lost on.
 
Yes, it did break the rules. There is no place for aesthetic considerations in natural history photography. Natural history painting, yes; but not photography. I have never understood this - it seems to be the only branch of photography where the difficulty of getting the photograph is more important than the photograph got :exit:

Apologies - I do have a bee in my bonnet over this subject.
 
StephenM said:
Yes, it did break the rules. There is no place for aesthetic considerations in natural history photography. Natural history painting, yes; but not photography. I have never understood this - it seems to be the only branch of photography where the difficulty of getting the photograph is more important than the photograph got :exit:

Apologies - I do have a bee in my bonnet over this subject.
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It was shot in a zoo!

That for many photographers on here is a bigger faux pas than the cloning ;)
 
Very true. That means it wasn't a natural history photograph in the first place - my error. It was being judged as a press photograph and therefore no cloning aloud (sic).
 
jakeblu said:
It was shot in a zoo!

That for many photographers on here is a bigger faux pas than the cloning ;)
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For a news photograph?
 
I was meaning that the shot is a news photograph not wildlife, so the story was probably in the zoo not the wild - not a faux pas.
 
Nod said:
I was meaning that the shot is a news photograph not wildlife, so the story was probably in the zoo not the wild - not a faux pas.
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The faux pas was related to certain wildlife photographers on here, not the story, sorry for the confusion
 
The competition rules were based on photojournalism rules that you must not alter the content of the image, or publish an altered image. Which applies to every news picture you see. Except those containing politicians.
 
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No sour grapes then?
Another photographer who shot the same scene noticed the piece of straw was missing and alerted Walkley award management.
 
ianp5a said:
The competition rules were based on photojournalism rules that you must not alter the content of the image, or publish an altered image. Which applies to every news picture you see. Except those containing politicians.
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So it would have been OK if he'd photoshopped a poppy on to the gorilla. :-)
 
The other bloke copied his competition entry, and added a bit of straw. And boom!
 
Er. Yes. <sigh> He blew up the gorillas.

Actually the baby one is a clone, I'm told. So it shouldn't have been admitted to the competition in the first place.
 
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As shot (with the piece of straw), it's a rather uninspiring shot and probably wouldn't have got a second look from the judges. So the photographer CHEATED by cloning out the straw (which does improve the shot aesthetically - a LOT!) which was against the rules. As an animal shot, IF cloning was allowed in a competition to which it was entered, it might stand a chance (please note that I didn't say wildlife...) but it was in a news category where cloning is a no-no.
 
StephenM said:
Yes, it did break the rules. There is no place for aesthetic considerations in natural history photography. Natural history painting, yes; but not photography. I have never understood this - it seems to be the only branch of photography where the difficulty of getting the photograph is more important than the photograph got :exit:.
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It's not a wildlife photography prize, it's a journalism prize, so I'd dispute your "only branch" claim!

Wildlife photography has adopted photojournalism's 'school of factual accuracy' because in wildlife photography, the context matters; wild vs captive, natural behavior vs photographer-influenced behavior. And it matters because these images are often used in relation to environmental and conservation issues where the truth of the photo is important (plus animal welfare issues). The rules wouldn't have to be so zero tolerance if people didn't lie. People wouldn't value that photo more if it was a wild animal simply because it was harder work for the photographer, but because it would have told us something about the world that wasn't the hand of man.
 
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My "only branch" phrase was followed by words that mean that your point is wide of the mark. Unless you'd care to substantiate the position that in photojournalism the difficuly of getting the shot is also more important than the shot got?

My problem with this sort of rule applied to a photographic competition is that ultimately it isn't the image that is of overriding importance. I don't have a problem with it when used for record photography; which is all that wildlife photography appears to be.

ANyway, that's a different topic, so I'll leave it there.
 
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