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National Geographic Photo Contest Winner Gets Disqualified for Removing a Bag from Winning Image

Chris Gampat
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01/17/2013
1 Min read
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Last Updated on 01/17/2013 by Chris Gampat

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See that photo above? According to Fuji Rumors, that is the original photo that was supposed to be entered into a contest for National Geographic. The photo is by photographer Harry Fisch, who explained the entire situation on his blog.

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Harry emailed Nat Geo’s editors after learning that his photo was disqualified to argue a very valid point that has been totally fine in photojournalism for years: what if he cropped it? Cropping the image doesn’t change it enough to call it Photoshopping. In fact, it’s a practice done by photo editors every day to make a good image stronger. Fisch’s point was that the bag didn’t have any major impact on the image at all.

What do you think? Oh, by the way: the image was shot with the X Pro 1.

Editor’s Note: we corrected our misinterpretation that Mr. Fish cropped the image. Instead, he simply argued the point. We’re sorry for the mistake.

Via Fuji Rumors

contest cropping harry fish national geographic Photography photojournalism photoshopping
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.