LAUPS winners: Subject's manipulation?

Now the case is close but i hope it gave us a lesson and contests in the future became more strict about subjects manipulation . If in doubt about an image , ask for tangible proof and if not provided then don't choose the photo.

 

Also for us photographers , cheating is not a good thing ; as technology is making our world smaller everyday, is easier to check the facts .

Jose: thanks for the information as posted above we will continue to investigate to the detriment of all those who won prizes and are waiting for them.

The problem I have with your comment above is that I don't know what "tangible proof" can be that I didn't do something. More importantly, we at LAUPS do not award the prizes, they are chosen by a panel of judges. Judging a contest is thankless, hard work and no judge can know all the habits of all the creatures whose image comes to them so they can only go by experience. I and all of the judges know that iguanas can swim and some swim by themselves. This one can't but it took a trip to Cuba to figure that out and unfortunately we can't afford to send our judges to Cleveland, let alone Cuba to go diving .

Anyway, I am truly grateful that you figured this out and we will let everyone know what happens soon.

Bill

Bill

I appreciate your effort/time to try to find a right solution to a matter so difficult as this one . But I think at the end , environment will be the winner and that will be something important.

As per "tangible proof" , i think that what Mauricio previously suggested could be one :

"One of the best ways to see how the photographer arrived at this 'winning image'

is to see the complete unedited raw (or jpg) sequence.

I have to assume that there is a sequence of images that eventually reaches or contains

the best image overall.

Although this will not be 100% accurate it will define the thinking process of the photographer and whether

there are irregularities within the set that indicate a non professional approach to obtaining said images."

I will pm you

JA

any news with this, guys? no word from them since...no answer to emails...

not quite what I had in mind when I entered...

It's tough to do things right.

Two weeks ago I was tracking a lovely yellow seahorse in the Philippines. I was watching it move from one place to another (without my help, mind you) hoping it would go to a place where I could photograph it without endangering the surrounding corals. A Russian photographer saw me watching it intently, came up and shoved his camera at the seahorse and snapped away. He scared it deeper into the staghorn corals. No problem for him....he grabbed a large branch of the coral in his way and broke it off. I was so angry I aborted the dive to fume. It was hard being on the same boat and be in any way civil.

 

Good thing he didn't speak English.....

I saw the same thing in Puerto Galera a few years back. I stopped the guy doing it again (which he was trying to do) and advised the DM back on the boat what had happened. The idiot in question refused to admit doing what I'd watched him do, let alone show remorse. The DM asked whether I was certain, which I confirmed. When we got back, the dive shop manager was called, and said idiot was told to pack his gear and piss off, no question of paying, just go.

10 minutes, and a few phone calls later, he was blacklisted from every reputable shop. Well done that dive op, say I.

Well it hasn't been soon but we did in fact remove the Iguana pic from the competition so congratulations to Keri Wilk for winning the wide angle portion of the contest. There are of course lots of considerations in changing the awards after the fact, including potential liability but we believe that we finally made the correct decision. One thing that has come out of this is that all contests need to be vigilant and we need to be very careful about how we write the rules for competition. With prizes being worth a lot of money cheating/violationg the rules both intentionally and unintentionally is getting more commonplace in my opinion.

In any case this chapter is hopefully finished and we will make sure that judges in the future are on the lookout for any suspicious pics.

Bill

Well it hasn't been soon but we did in fact remove the Iguana pic from the competition so congratulations to Keri Wilk for winning the wide angle portion of the contest.

OH NO, Keri agaaaain nooooo!!!

There are of course lots of considerations in changing the awards after the fact, including potential liability but we believe that we finally made the correct decision. One thing that has come out of this is that all contests need to be vigilant and we need to be very careful about how we write the rules for competition. With prizes being worth a lot of money cheating/violationg the rules both intentionally and unintentionally is getting more commonplace in my opinion.

 

In any case this chapter is hopefully finished and we will make sure that judges in the future are on the lookout for any suspicious pics.

 

Bill

Congratulations Bill, you did well!

oh look, another month has passed without any news or notification from the organizers about the final standings and decisions on prize distribution.

sad thing, that (the possibility) fraud knocks over such a great competition. even more sad how communication is handled.

csaba

Csaba - Bill posted the official response here. Were you looking for something different?

Thanks for your help, Eric, mail sent!

cheers,

csaba

Csaba - Bill posted the official response here. Were you looking for something different?

I am glad too see that people do care about this. As a dive instructor I have seen too many photographers molesting the wildlife to get a good picture.

Thanks for your help, Eric, mail sent!

 

cheers,

csaba

Csaba: As far as I know all winners have been notified by LAUPS as to their prize and how to redeem it. If you haven't heard from us please let me know at

bill.van-antwerp@medtronic.com

thanks

Bill

I have heard nothing on my prize either.

Cheers

Todd

I have heard nothing on my prize either.

 

Cheers

 

Todd

Todd: Sorry for the delays but our staff of thousands (Kelly) is slowly getting out the prizes. All first place and second place prizes are out now I believe and the rest will go out over the next few weeks. Everyone WILL get their prizes but the logistics of getting stuff all over the world and trying to match prizes to winners is not trivial. Many prizes are for local Southern California stores for example and most likely a winner from Italy won't be coming to a photo class in Los Angeles. In any case, please be a bit more patient and you should hear from us soon.

Bill

" As far as I know all winners have been notified by LAUPS as to their prize and how to redeem it. If you haven't heard from us please let me know at

bill.van-antwerp@medtronic.com

thanks

Bill"

Bill,

I am not worried about it. I was only responding to your post stating that people were contacted and that you wanted to be contacted if that was not the case. (I had heard nothing)

It is unfortunate that the competition was tainted by someone not following the rules and delaying the process for all the other entrants.

Cheers

Todd

Bill: no word from anyone from laups yet. I've sent you a mail, and continue to wait. I am not impatient nor worried. Just would like to know what's up

Thanks!

Csaba

Csaba: As far as I know all winners have been notified by LAUPS as to their prize and how to redeem it. If you haven't heard from us please let me know at

bill.van-antwerp@medtronic.com

thanks

Bill

Yesterday evening I got the letter from Kelly that I was waiting for. Thank you very much!

Csaba

Bill: no word from anyone from laups yet. I've sent you a mail, and continue to wait. I am not impatient nor worried. Just would like to know what's up

 

Thanks!

Csaba