Photo credit: Marcio Cabral

The art of manipulation in pictures seems to have reached the profession of nature photography after Brazilian artist Marcio Cabral was stripped of last year’s award by the international jury in the National History Museum in London when they noticed there was a slight issue with his entry for ‘animals in their environment’. The image, entitled ‘the night raider’, was at first highly praised by all that saw it.

According to Mr Cabral’s original text accompanying his entry, he was outside at night trying to capture the beauty of an ant heap glowing in a starry sky (something which he had tried to do for some three years already) and just when he thought he had finally caught the perfect shot, an anteater walked into the frame and decided to start eating the tasty treat, making for a near perfect picture combing the glowing ant-heap, the night sky with the start lit up and the real star of the frame, the anteater about to start consuming the ants.

The jury in London agreed and offered him a win in the worldwide category ‘animals in their environment’.

However, a possible rival to Mr Cabral called the jury afterwards and claimed the picture was a fake, stating that the anteater was in fact a stuffed animal from a local museum and the photographer had staged the whole thing. Upon hearing this and after a ‘thorough investigation’ from five scientists (including two mammal experts from the UK and two local Brazilian biologists), the prize was indeed revoked.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wildlife photographer Marcio Cabral loses prize over 'taxidermy anteater' <a href="https://t.co/hmLPKa4Z3E">https://t.co/hmLPKa4Z3E</a></p>— Sky News (@SkyNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/989857380249866240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2018</a></blockquote>

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The National History Museum released a statement: “The five scientists, working independently of each other, all concluded that there are elements of the animal’s posture, morphology, raised tufts of fur and patterns on the neck and head that are too similar for the images to show two different animals.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/NHM_London?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NHM_London</a> has removed a winning photo from the prestigious <a href="https://twitter.com/NHM_WPY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NHM_WPY</a> 2017 contest.<br><br>Find out why: <a href="https://t.co/D7LMyRizn8">https://t.co/D7LMyRizn8</a><br> Marcio Cabral <a href="https://t.co/KIB1Kam3Vb">pic.twitter.com/KIB1Kam3Vb</a></p>— BBC Wildlife (@WildlifeMag) <a href="https://twitter.com/WildlifeMag/status/989962423540043777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2018</a></blockquote>

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On of the 2017 judges, Ms Roz Kidman Cox stated that she was disheartened to find that ‘cheating with pictures’ had now reached nature photography: “The competition places great store on honesty and integrity, and such a breach of the rules is disrespectful to the wildlife photography community, which is at the heart of the competition.”

Source:

https://mashable.com/2018/04/27/natural-history-museum-photography-competition-scandal/