Society
Award winning photographer suspected of plagiarism
By Wang Qian (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-01-07 18:04
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 Award winning photo of Sang Yuzhu |
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 Original photo by Meng Tie |
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 Award winning photo of Sang Yuzhu |
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 Original photo by Meng Tie |
Four scenic photos won the Golden Mendel Award, the highest award for China photographers last year were suspected of plagiarism.
"I am on my honor to say that the photos are not shot by the winner. It is a shame of photographers," Lang Qi, a 83-year-old senior photographer who first found the plagiarism in November last year told China Daily on Wednesday.
Sang Yuzhu, the award winner and vice-president of the photographer association with Jilin Artists' Association denied the saying, but refused to give further explanation.
The photos taken in Tianchi Lake and Shangbai mountain in Jilin province, northeast China are visually the same as the other four published earlier with the same angle, the same clouds' shapes and the same shadows but by different photographers.
The four published were shot by Wen Bo, a worker in Changbai Mountain administration committee and Meng Tie, a member of Changbai Mountain photographers’ association. All have won the local awards.
"In my opinion, Sang bought the photos from Meng, because Meng is a photo dealer and used Wen's, because they are friends," Land said, adding that Wen later sent a text message to him for thanking his care, but he have to consider his friendship with Sang.
For many senior photographers, the fact is clear, for no leaves are exactly the same on earth, let alone photos.
"Technically, I have to say the chances of plagiarism is very high, because I have shot clouds for years and never seen two exactly the same clouds in my photos," Xu Lin, former senior photographer with People's Daily, who exposed the scandal on his blog on Dec 31 last year told China Daily on Wednesday.
Xu said as the clouds are moving all the time, even standing at the same place, using the same camera and taking the same angle, the chances of same shootings are slim.
Xu's blog caught many neitizens' attention and got hundreds of comments overnight.
A neitizen named Luchaosheng said that plagiarism is no doubt, but why the jury did not find out is the question.
Lang felt no surprise about the question, because he said that Sang set up good relationship with the China Photographers' Association (CPA) and even helped his son get a job there.
Gao Qin, the organizer of the award confirmed the suspect and told Beijing Youth Daily on Wednesday that they have set up a investigation team and will publish the result when the investigation ends.
This is not the first scandal in China photograph industry.
In April 2007, the winner of the first International News Photo Award in China was suspect of using photoshop by adding the other exactly same pigeon on the photo.
Golden Mendel Award for China photographers is the highest award for domestic photographers, held by CPA every two years. About 332 photographers attended last year's awards with 12 of them get the awards.
