Shabby judgment
The news is out that Spanish wildlife photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez has been stripped of his first place title and £10,000 award by judges in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest run by the British Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
This is a sad state of affairs on so very many levels.
According to articles published yesterday, the judges said it was “likely” that Rodriguez used a tame wolf for the dramatic photo, titled “Storybook Wolf,” in violation of contest rules. Other photographers had complained that the wolf strongly resembled a tame wolf named Ossian who lives at Canada Real, a wildlife preserve near Madrid. And you can find a photo on the web taken at the preserve that vaguely resembles the background of the winning shot.
Rodriguez, though, strongly denies any impropriety. He has specialized in just this kind of highly lit nature photography for years.
The weird thing is that neither side has provided any concrete evidence to support their cases.
The contest judges have branded Rodriguez a pariah in the nature photography community and banned him from their contest for life based on something they call “likely” without offering specific evidence.
Rodriguez, for his part, has offered no specifics to substantiate the autheticity of his photo.
But the weirdest thing is, the winning photograph is awful. Whether “real” or staged, it’s utterly cheesy, the kind of demented nature porn that has come to dominate the nature photography market around the world. Who cares if it’s a picture of Ossian? It’s boring, overwrought and melodramatic.The judges knew this when they picked it, referring to its “fairy tale” qualities.
The judges should be fired, both for choosing the photograph in the first place and then for their handling of the complaints about it.
photo: Storybook Wolf, courtesy NHM/BBC
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