BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Grand Prize Winner Disqualified

As many of you are probably aware, Mr. Jose Luis Rodriguez, the grand prize winner of the most important nature photography contest in the world, has been stripped of his award and banned for life from entering the competition again. In a nutshell, a group of Spanish photographers raised questions regarding whether the wolf in the award-winning shot was really a wild wolf and not an animal model. Investigations followed, and it was determined that the image was indeed made of a captive, animal model wolf in a game park type of setting. Mr. Rodriguez maintains that it was a wild wolf and that the image was taken on a farm owned by a private landowner.

Together with a Photoshop and geographic-location misrepresentation committed by one of the prize winners of the US National Wildlife Refuge Association photo contest (http://refugeassociation.org/new-pdf-files/Press%20Releases/2009Contest_Fraud_Release.pdf), the BBC drama has raised serious questions about nature photography in the minds of the general public. However you feel personally about manipulating images in post-processing or shooting captive animals, the important lesson is that one has to stick to the rules of any contest entered. Your reputation and the reputation of nature photography in general depends on it!

There are a couple of threads on the nature photo forums here in the US that may be of interest to many of you. These contain links to other English language articles about the image and the investigations.

http://www.naturescapes.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=170284

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=55062

And for those of you who speak Spanish, here are some links provided by a couple of my Spanish photographer friends (one of whom was the BBC judge that spearheaded the investigation; he has a stellar reputation so I think that his determination should be the final word!):

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/12/22/comunicacion/1261481095.html

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Retiran/premio/fotografo/espanol/instantanea/lobo/iberico/elpepusoc/20100120elpepusoc_11/Tes

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/01/20/comunicacion/1263988834.html

http://www.ojodigital.com/foro/general/300496-ya-es-oficial-investigada-por-posible-fraude-la-foto-del-lobo-3.html

http://www.fotonatura.org/blog/2010/01/20/el-concurso-wpoy-descalifica-a-jose-luis-rodriguez/

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/01/21/comunicacion/1264065808.html

Cheers,
Greg