David Byrne was disqualified from the Landscape Photographer of the Year award for employing excessive digital manipulation in his winning entry, a striking black-and-white image of beached wooden fishing boats with Lindisfarne Castle in the distance.
He has been removed of his title as overall winner of the competition, which comes with a £10,000 prize.
The contest’s organisers, Take A View, said Mr Byrne’s photograph was assessed in “good faith” and was the “clear favourite” of the judges.
Charlie Waite, the competition’s founder, said: “This is extremely regrettable and it appears there was no deliberate intention to deceive the judges, but the level of manipulation means that this photograph gained an unfair advantage in this category and in winning the overall competition.
“The integrity of the competition is very important to all involved and it was clear that disqualification was the only course of action open to us.”
He added: “We will be reviewing our checking processes to ensure that such issues are picked up earlier in the judging process for 2013 and beyond.” A second photograph by Mr Byrne, which won the “classic view” category of the competition, has also been disqualified.
The new winning image is Simon Butterworth’s picture of a condemned housing block in Port Glasgow in Scotland.
Mr Waite described it as “a very worthy winner” and said it was the first time that an urban landscape had won the main award in the six years the competition has been running. COURTESY
