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# Badly Photoshopped Photo Wins Nikon Award and Internet Freaks Out
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/badly-photoshopped-photo-wins-nikon-award-and-internet-freaks-out/
- Published: 2016-01-30T00:01:03.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:42:38.000Z
- Description: Hastily photoshopping a graphic of an airplane into a shot of some abstracted architecture could win you a Nikon prize.
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: In Brief, Photography, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 4.41.08 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/01/screen-shot-2016-01-29-at-4-41-08-pm.png)

The prize-winning, badly Photoshopped photograph (all screenshots by the author via Facebook) (click to enlarge)

Hastily photoshopping a graphic of an airplane into a shot of some abstracted architecture could win you a Nikon prize.

Yesterday, Nikon Singapore posted an [announcement](https://www.facebook.com/nikonsingapore/photos/a.168788309841996.46849.164385193615641/945585702162249/) on its Facebook page congratulating a photographer named Chay Yu Wei for his perfectly timed shot of an airplane flying above a ladder in Chinatown.

“Yu Wei chanced upon a set of ladders while on a photowalk with his friends in Chinatown, and thought the view above would make an interesting perspective,” Nikon wrote. “Little did he expect to catch an airplane in mid-air. We’ll try looking up too, Yu Wei.” This lucky shot won Yu Wei a Nikon trolley bag.

It wasn’t long, however, before internet commenters pointed out that the plane had been shoddily pasted in. As PetaPixel [pointed out](http://petapixel.com/2016/01/29/nikon-awards-prize-to-badly-shopped-photo-hilarity-ensues/?ref=hyperallergic.com), you don’t have to look too closely to see a white blob surrounding the plane’s silhouette that’s mismatched from the sky, and changing the photo’s levels makes the copy-and-paste job ridiculously clear. Photographers had plenty to say about the matter. Many tried their hand at photoshopping Yu Wei’s ladder image, replacing the plane with everything from Godzilla to a bride (and leaving their creations in the comments on the Nikon Facebook post).

![Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 4.47.19 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/01/screen-shot-2016-01-29-at-4-47-19-pm.png)

(click to enlarge)

![Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 4.47.41 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/01/screen-shot-2016-01-29-at-4-47-41-pm.png)

(click to enlarge)

![Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 4.46.58 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/01/screen-shot-2016-01-29-at-4-46-58-pm.png)

(click to enlarge)

![Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 4.45.17 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/01/screen-shot-2016-01-29-at-4-45-17-pm-1.png)

(click to enlarge)

Of course, this isn’t the first time an award-winning photograph has been proven to be doctored or staged. In 2010, the [Natural History Museum’s wildlife photographer of the year was stripped](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/20/wolf-wildlife-photographer-award-stripped?ref=hyperallergic.com) of his nearly $15,000 prize after judges discovered he’d brought in a tame Iberian wolf to stage his shot of a species rarely found in the wild. Last year, the jury of the prestigious World Press Photo contest stripped an Italian photographer of a first prize after his photograph of his cousin having sex in the back of a car at night turned out to have been staged. And the godfather of all staged photographs might be Robert Capa’s “[Falling Soldier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FFalling%5FSoldier?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (1936). While a trolley bag isn’t quite on the same level as these prizes, our lucky Yu Wei is carrying on a long and storied tradition.

Nikon Singapore has not yet removed its Facebook post congratulating Yu Wei on his Photoshopped work. In the meantime, watch out for Minecraft planes overhead.

*h/t* [*PetaPixel*](http://petapixel.com/2016/01/29/nikon-awards-prize-to-badly-shopped-photo-hilarity-ensues/?ref=hyperallergic.com)