At first glance, Chay Yu Wei’s shot of a plane passing overhead looks like a remarkable capture, with the aircraft perfectly framed by a ladder and its safety cage.
Indeed, Nikon Singapore was so impressed with the picture that last Thursday it awarded the photographer a prize in a contest titled Look Up. However, other photographers quickly spotted that Yu Wei’s winning image was actually the result of some rather ropey post processing.
“Yu Wei chanced upon a set of ladders while on a photowalk with his friends in Chinatown, and thought the view above would make an interesting perspective,” Nikon wrote in a Facebook post announcing the prizewinning shot, adding, “Little did he expect to catch an airplane in mid-air.” That’s absolutely true, which is probably why he decided to insert one himself.
As many of Nikon’s Facebook followers pointed out, a simple of adjustment of the image’s exposure reveals Yu Wei’s photo for what it is – a fake.
Of course, once others had drawn attention to the mischievous transgression, it didn’t take long for the connected masses to wade in with their own humorous take on the matter….
[Images via BoredPanda]
On Saturday, Nikon told its Facebook fans it’d made “an honest mistake,” while promising to “tighten our image review process to avoid similar situations in the future.”
It also thanked everyone for their humorous responses.
Apparently still niggled by the slip-up, the camera company took to its Facebook page again on Sunday to announce that it was about to remove the competition page – including all the witty responses –as the fake image “should not have a place beside other good contributions from the community.”
One user pleaded with Nikon to keep the page, saying many were enjoying “the massive work contributed by the community in the comments section [which] brought joy and unity to the masses.” But Nikon took it down anyway.
As for the photographer, he, too, has since apologized for causing such a fuss. In a post on Instagram, Yu Wei wrote, “I snapped a picture of [the ladder] and subsequently felt that a plane at that spot would make for an interesting point of view. Hence, I inserted the plane with PicsArt and uploaded it to Instagram….it was not meant to bluff anyone. I would have done it with Photoshop if I really meant to lie about it, but no, it was a playful edit using the PicsArt app and uploaded to Instagram.”
He said he’d “crossed the line” by submitting the photo for a competition, adding, “I’m really sorry to Nikon for disrespecting the competition and I sincerely apologize….to all Nikon Photographers, and to the photography community as general.”
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