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Famous Wildlife Photographer Busted For Using Stock Images
Nobody knows better than Award-winning wildlife photographer Terje Helleso how hard it can be to get that perfect shot in an out-of-the-way location. That's why he used stock photos. The 47-year-old photographer passed off hundreds of stock photos as his own over the course of several years. From the article: "On Wednesday, a deeply regretful Helleso spoke to local radio. He gave economic problems as a reason, but mostly it was about his own unreasonably high demands on himself to be successful, he said. 'I was under pressure, mostly from myself, and I gave in to temptation. Looking back, I’m surprised that I got away with it for so long, and that I managed to keep up appearances to my wife and everyone else,' he said."
On Wednesday, a deeply regretful Helleso spoke to local radio
Regretful because he was caught. If he wasn't caught, probably he would have been quite happy.
It's not like this type of fraud hasn't happened before. Does anybody else remember Milli Vanilli? No? Good! In ten years, probably less, Terje Hellesco will be just as forgotten, for the same reasons.
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The point isn't that he edited the image, it's that he claimed credit for having taken the picture in the first place.
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It redirects to https so Google translate won't work.
http://www.flashback.org/t1641161
Ha ha is right..
Well, it's easy to preach something you're not following yourself. ...he'd make a fine politician.
Depends on the type of photography. Art photography? Go ahead and edit it all you want. Journalistic photography? Anything else than mild color correction (and I do mean "correction") is wrong. Nature photography is probably somewhere in the middle depending on the context. (in this case, the photographer claimed documentary intent, not artistic).
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Yepp. Those sure are some bad composites. Apparently a few professionals actually did notice and rose the stink. His reward is up for review, his site is offline and he's probably out hiding somewhere. This guy is toast.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This is pretty old news here in Sweden by now. He won the prize of wildlife photographer of the year and has held several courses, so I'm pretty sure he cashed in on this.
When the accusations started, he said that he was completely innocent and a lot of people believed him thanks to his reputation (one of the most - if not the most famous - wildlife photographers in Sweden.) However, he wouldn't show the raw pictures which added on to the suspicions.
A large "investigation" started on internet forums and eventually people found the original pictures of animals that he had pasted onto his pictures. Like http://a.yey.nu/QHL7RE.jpgfor example (mirror reversed). This forced him to admit of course.
The funny thing is that he has been outspoken against editing of photos and said never to use Photoshop on his images: "I'm a photographer, not a pixel artist".
Especially because I, just like Hellesö, is a Norwegian photographer living in this part of Sweden (northern Småland). When I saw his book Året (http://www.fotosidan.se/shop/viewproduct.htm?ID=17869) where he took one great shot every day of a full year I was flabbergasted and couldn't believe it was possible. Obviously it wasn't. Everybody manipulates photos, just by adjusting the ISO you're manipulating, but he stole stock photos, passing them off as his own. And yet, I accept his apology as heartfelt, and just wish he had redefined his works instead of passing them off as "real". If you're interested in nature photography, do check out his portfolio still. His style, where presence takes precedence over clarity is novel and refreshing.
Plagiarism is everywhere, and only gets worse as people are better connected.
Information wants to be free, and people want free information... especially to call their own to make money or higher grades or other personal gain.
The whole issue was raised when a state wildlife inspector got puzzled when Terje had seen so many lynxes (sp?) in such short time when the inspector, (for 30+ years or so) only had seen a couple.
On a personal note, as a Swedish avid amateur photographer I've personally been a part of the discussions on the Swedish phtography forums where Terje has been posting and he has always sounded snotty and acting like a jerk. So this suits him right. His wife who is a photographer too also has doctored photos of lynx-sightings altho she has also claimed Terjes cheating was news to her. It's unfortunately that this happened since it taints the reputation of other (legit) Swedish nature photographers.
English is not my first language, so cut me some slack -: Om du kan lasa det har sa kan du Svenska
The studio musicians on Milli Vanilli's album not only knew what was up, but willingly did it. And it's not like MV went and grabbed tracks from existing albums or audio libraries, everything was recorded fresh
Yes, this one sounds closer to the Joyce Hatto case, where (classical piano) recordings by other artists were shamelessly plundered, obviously without consent:
http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/joyce-hatto-the-great-piano-swindle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Hatto
So whose stock photos are they though?
Why is this "idle" and not a 400Million (YourCurrencyHere) copyright case?
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That he used stock images is just one small aspect of the story, the whole story is so much larger than that.
It should be mentioned that he preached never to retouch or edit the pictures you take. He claimed himself to pre-visualize the whole image, only to create the image in the camera and carefully take that one shot (in contrast to what many other wildlife photographers say, that they take series of pictures of animals in the wild in hope that one of them will be the one that catches your eye). One of the more outrageous claims was how he framed the composition of two flying dragonflies over a pond. In the description of the image he told us of all the choices he made before pressing the shutter. Today these claims seem more like boasting about his own ability. Not all his images are fake and he is a good photographer, just not as good as he claims and he puts it on a bit thick when talking about his own skills. In his own blog he even critizised Steve Bloom for manipulating images.
Also, he was a fervent advocate of hunting down people using other photographers pictures without permission. In his blog he lashed out at a photo site when they used one of his pictures to illustrate a article about him. The editor apologized for the mistake and offered to pay for the used images. Another time he came down really hard on one of his fans, having used one of his photographs as inspiration for a painting she did. He himself pointed out the differences and how that painting would be impossible as a photo. Then he uses stock photo images in manipulations and claims that they are his own (unedited) works.
Unfortunately he has a big following of fans that still defend him. He has groomed, through various photography forums and his own blog, an almost sect-like cult around him. Any mediocre images he posted was raised to the skies and any critizism was hammered on by the fans with comments like "you don't know how to appreciate his greatness", "he has progressed so much further in the field of photography than you, how dare you criticize him", etc.
At Fotosidan.se (a Swedish photography forum where he was very active for a few years) one member claim that he noticed that several of Hellesøs images got top votes, earning them spotlight positions on the website. Several voters had very typical undistinctive names (the swedish equivalents of "John Smith"), never posted any work themselves, only rated Hellesøs images and only gave top scores. The member brought this to the administrators attention but the practice continued. When Fotosidan started logging the IP-addresses these accounts were deleted according to that member.
Hellesø claims to have asked for forgiveness, but in fact, all he has done is taken down his blog (with the evidence, luckily Google caches it still) and the regret he wants us to think he shows is overshadowed by him victimizing himself. He even went so far as to compare the search for truth about his alleged original work as a witch hunt like he was Khadaffi or Breivik (the norwegian bomber and mass-murderer). So far he has done very little to deserve any forgiveness. He has lied from day one until he was revealed big time. Until the first hard proof came he claimed in radio interviews to be subjected to a plot, even when wildlife experts questioned why pictures of a lynx taken in the summer still had the winter fur, and that he never had seen any traces of the lynx prey, despite him claiming to see 150 lynx sightings in 19 months (much more than skilled wildlife experts and hunters have on record). Also he claimed to have found the racoon dog in a place of Sweden where it should not have be, and the hunt started to find it since it might be a carrier of rabies. He has used his pictures and "expertise" as proof in political debates.
The man is a liar and a hypocrite and should really be treated as one, but I couldn't care less about him and his, IMHO, uninteresting and uninspiring work. But this affair has so many layers to it, ethics, legal, political, et
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This might sound a bit rude, but put your words where you mouth is: lets see your portfolio and see what your work looks like. Even better, lets see the original negatives (You are shooting film, right? Digital cameras do some post-processing in the camera itself depending on the model and usually require minor correction on the computer just to compensate for how warm the sensor was when the photograph was taken.) and I want to see one perfect shot for each frame on the film.
Pretty much every professional photographer I have ever met does some sort of dark room manipulation (either with chemicals or in software), cropping, or even just taking a bunch of shots and picking the one prefect one that they show others.
He might regret getting caught, but like criminals, they often regret what they are doing. People sometimes get into something, and then feel trapped. Imagine a man overcome by desire who cheats on his wife. He royally screws up, but if he stops now, the other woman may tell on him. So, the affair lasts for years. And eventually, the woman does tell anyways.
He's regretted that he'd be found out since day 1, not just after he was caught. We often assume regret begins after they are caught, but that fear is always present. It is the emotional cost for the unethical activity, and only a true psychopath could not feel it.
Unless you are suggesting he's clinically psychopathic, then it was about being caught, but not brought about by being caught.
I8-D