Competition Etiquette

There was a Landscape Photography Competition recently that has produced a lot of controversy on the Internet photography forums.

The main controversy was the winner. The photograph was a blatant copy of a picture from another photographer. What made it obvious was he had a link to the other photographer who he admired.

The other entires generally were commented on because of the excessive Photoshop work and composites.

The extend of the use of Photoshop should be defined in the rules of the competition, general touch up and editing is one thing but the heavy combining of elements from different images is less photography and more computer skills. Unlike many, I do not have a problem with heavy use of Photoshop, many of the techniques can be and were replicated in the darkroom by the greats. It was Ansel Adams who said the negative was the score and the final print the symphony. Many think similarly of the RAW file.

It’s the blatant copying I have a problem with. It’s one thing to try and replicate a well known photography in order to learn, but another thing to present it as your own work.

After the comments that have appeared on the internet the winner has now been disqualified.

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