Photo Contest Winner Turns Out To Be A Photoshopped Fake

The winning image in a amateur photography contest has been exposed as a fake, following a social media storm.

A monthly contest run by camera maker Nikon was won by Singapore-based Chay Yu Wei with his photo called ‘Look Up’.

The striking black and white image shows a metal ladder on the side of a building, with a perfectly timed plane flying through the sky in the centre.

However, after the image was declared winner, skeptical photography buffs took to social media to point out the picture had clearly been photoshopped.

The photographer later admitted that he added the plane to the image later (Chay Yu Wei/Instagram)

They claimed that the plane had obviously been added to the picture after it was taken as it was surrounded by a box of a slightly different shade of white, and also appeared pixelated.

The image has now been removed from Nikon’s page but still remains on Chay Yu Wei’s Instagram account, under the user name yuuuuuwei.

To his credit, the photographer has since posted an image that simply reads ‘Dear fellow photographers, I’m sorry’ with a lengthy caption to explain his actions.

The photographer has since apologised (Chay Yu Wei/Instagram )

“I was on a photo walk in Chinatown and I chanced upon that set of ladders. I snapped a picture of it, 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. That’s how I use Instagram, sometime it’s to showcase the work I’m proud of, sometimes just to have fun,” says Yu Wei.

“However, I made a mistake by not keeping it to Instagram as a casual social media platform. I crossed the line by submitting the photo for a competition. I meant it as a joke and I’m really sorry to Nikon for disrespecting the competition,” he adds.

The Instagram user finished with an apology:

“This is my fault and I sincerely apologise to Nikon, to all Nikon Photographers, and to the photography community as general”.

Image credit: yuuuuuwei

Via: The Telegraph