Take A View LPOTY 2012, Controversy Again?
FURTHER UPDATE: The winner David Byrne was stripped from his title. For full details see here.
UPDATE: Take a view has announced on twitter… Hi all….we are certainly not ignoring all your comments and have been investigating the issue. We will be making a statement shortly.
This 6 year running competition has caused controversy once again. The winning image taken by David Byrne (see banner above) seems to be an identical copy of Peter Clark’s image (see below).
We have nothing against the competition, we actually believe that if run properly, it could be highly inspirational to many photographers. As it stands, it seems to be in many people’s thoughts that the competition is there in order to make money for its owners and please its sponsors. These are not our words but the thoughts of many photographers around the web.
Now, here is the controversy. Apparently, the description of the image on David Byrne’s website was “We went to Holy Island for the night, to visit the famous boat houses and castle of Lindisfarne. I’ve been waiting for a year to do this after seeing Peter Clarke’s great version of it. I hope I’ve done it justice“.
At some point during the 26th Oct this description was changed to “I went to shoot this after seeing a friend’s version at my camera club and it inspired me to go there and put my style on it. This place is no photographers secret and has been taken hundred’s of thousands of times but it’s still worth visiting the classics“. We like the “put my style on it” part.
However, the latest version of the description of the image on David Byrne’s blog is “We went to Holy Island for the night, to visit the famous boat houses and castle of Lindisfarne“.
Making things very clear, we have nothing against David Byrne either, he entered the competition with an image inspired (although identical) by someone else and won, well done. However, how about the ethos of the competition? Should the owners have made an attempt to investigate if other “Extremely Similar” images exist out there? This is very easy to achieve with today’s technology. Yes, there are many similar images of other locations around the UK, however, the similarities in these two images (all the way down to the crop style) are beyond “inspiration” as David Byrne originally called it, this is copying someone else’s style to create an almost identical picture.
There is also a very interesting chat going on here.
There is also a very interesting chat right here.
We can only bring facts on this page, opinions about the subject will be all yours. You may leave your remarks in the comments area below.
Even without manipulation I don’t see why this should have won not just because there were plenty of more worthy images that were entered but the virtually the same image by a different photographer won several years ago. So much for originality. I got an image commended last year but didn’t enter this year and now I’m glad I didn’t.
A thing can be refined many times, but not reinvented.
Looks like the winner has been disqualified from the competition for over manipulation.
I think the whole competition should be disqualified from the competition.
While the images are of the same subject matter and taken from the same perspective, the images are very different. From there it is up to the judges to look at quality, composition, etc. Why even enter into the controversy if there is one?
Another winner worth a look at is the Glasgow Landscapes competition. The first was taken by Stuart Lamont. The second won the competition.
http://www.stuartlamont.co.uk/photo12211952.html
http://www.glasgowdoorsopenday.com/competition/index.php
Nice photograph but it’s not very original. One of the things that Take A View LPOTY is supposed to promote is originality of an image. This fails so badly on that.
To have removed the name of the original photographer is odd. Not sure why he would have done this.
It is certainly causing a stir already. There’s lots of discussion if this shot should even be allowed into the competition. It has won medals in competitions before.