Photography Blog

Wolf winner Of WPOTY stripped of title

22 January 2010

Richard Costin

Upset in this prestigious competition

As I am sure a lot of you may know by now, the Wildlife Photographer Of the Year panel have examined the evidence given to them late last year and announced yesterday that they have disqualified the winning entry, 'Storybook Wolf' due to it being likely that it was an "animal model".
This is a huge upset as this is a very prestigious competition and this sort of thing just shouldn't happen as it does nothing but tarnish our reputations as wildlife journalists.

I have had emails asking for my thoughts, and here they are in brief..

Whilst I feel let down and I must say, more than a little peeved; I feel the most for the category winners, one of which would have been the overall winner (the winner is picked from these) and was effectively robbed of the title. They do not pick runner up places and will not be re-awarding it as the judging is done with no knowledge of the photographer.

I'll have a little more to say on the matter when a few more facts (at the moment they are just rumours) come out and I have had time to digest it all.

Thanks all,
Richard.