Cheaters never win

I thought this was funny:

Award winning photo turns out to be a fake!

It doesn't even look real. And the sad thing is the judges gave the image an award. What would possess the photographer to do that. Using a domesticated wolf?! :facepalm:

I wouldnt say it doesnt look real. It was a real photo, however the judges found evidence that he used a trained animal instead of a wild animal as the photographer claimed.

mrfixitx wrote in post #9449660
I wouldnt say it doesnt look real. It was a real photo, however the judges found evidence that he used a trained animal instead of a wild animal as the photographer claimed.

I should have said it looks staged.

Wow, I never have that kind of luck with wildlife, or flash... peeps are dopes.

I've seen some good wildlife photos that use flash but this one the lighting is too good and the photos foreground and background are suprisingly free of any distracting elements like, other trees, bushes etc...

The other thing is how often do adult wolves jump over fences that they could easily crawl through? You usually only see adult predators leap when they going in for a kill. It seems unlikely this animal was chasing anything given its pose. Plus most prey animals would not run through a gate, they would turn and run along the side of the walls looking for a narrow opening to hide in or sneak through instead of running out into the open.

Sad it's staged. For anyone who hasn't made it, Natural History has an awesome exhibition of the winning photos from the various categories. Well worth a visit - though it will make most of you (it did me) jealous...

^ what mrfixitx said, i was very surprised my self with this shot, it didn't seem as it was real. Although it is real, but as the man above said - predators wouldn't do that because it gives their position away and wasting energy is not wise in nature.

The photo looks a lot like the ones people take visiting Bass Pro Shops or Cabelas.

This is just plain sad. I have always thought that wildlife photographers, especially those that profit from their photos, should hold themselves to a higher standard. Any shot of a zoo critter that might be seen as a wild animal should be captioned with an explanation. National park shots are fine, those are wild animals, who cares if you are leaning against a prius when you take the shot, I sure don't. But bait in an animal, pose a taxidermy, try to pass of a zoo or tamed animal as wild and it is the lowest form of photographic rip off.
Think about those of us that invest hours and hours of our hard to get free time trying to get what we know we could cheat and have the easy way. It's an insult. It's the difference between learning to work a flyrod, tying flies in the off season, packing in to a beautiful stream and catching the fish of a lifetime or stopping at mcdonalds on the way home from bowling for a filet of fish sandwich. Bad form.

Should have had a little motion blur to make it more believable.

DStanic wrote in post #9450361
Should have had a little motion blur to make it more believable.

I'd say that's tough to do, when the subject is already "frozen" in time

russ_hillis wrote in post #9449929
The photo looks a lot like the ones people take visiting Bass Pro Shops or Cabelas.

This was my thought when I first saw the article. It is sad, though.

mrfixitx wrote in post #9449749
The other thing is how often do adult wolves jump over fences that they could easily crawl through? You usually only see adult predators leap when they going in for a kill.

Or a trained one going for a dog biscuit

lol

The world wide humiliation must make this even worse to deal with

It's one thing cheating on an exam or a test, or even a big exam or a test in order to get a good grade..but cheating in a huge competition like that would be a real blow to anyone's self actualization