Joe Petersburger joepetersburger.comNational Geographic publishes faked photos, Hungarian society says
The Hungarian Nature Photographers' Society (naturArt) believes that several pictures published as nature photographs in the National Geographic Magazine (NGM) were actually shot in a studio, using props and dead animals, naturArt's President Zsolt Kalotás and Vice-President Balázs Kármán say, stressing that they can prove their statements.
Pictures in a May, 2003 NGM feature about Hungarian mayflies by photographer Josef L. Szentpéteri (Joe Petersburger) depict scenarios that are never found in nature, naturArt says. Moreover, one photo shows fast-paced action that would have been physically impossible to shoot under the given circumstances, especially with the method and the equipment Szentpéteri claims to have used, according to naturArt.
The full-page picture which also made the cover of the Hungarian and Portuguese editions of NGM that month shows an airborne kingfisher that's about to catch a dying mayfly floating in the river Tisza, East Hungary.
"That photo may appear beautiful, but it's fake," says Kármán, himself an acclaimed amateur nature photographer specializing in kingfishers. "It's a motionless bird, with motionless wing tips, hovering over a dead mayfly in an artificial water pool, in front of an artificial background with artificial lighting."
Kármán co-authored an online report that naturArt published on the subject. Available a (www.naturephoto.hu) /, the document lists named, specialized biologists and other experts who share Kármán's concerns about the pictre's authenticity. "By the time you finish reading that report, you'll be pretty much convinced that the picture is not a nature photo," says Willis Glassgow, the award-winning photographer and founder of WG Sports Photos agency (www.wgsportsphotos.com) in Florence, South Carolina.
The naturArt report explains why the high speed of the bird would have made the shot practically impossible to take. In addition, the report points out that there's no motion blur in the picture, and the water surface is also unstirred, even though the extremely fast-moving wings of the bird must have hit it a fraction of second before the image was taken. Biologists also pinpoint the kingfisher's unnatural posture, as well as some features of its "eye ring" formation that they claim give away a dead bird.
Arthur Morris, a world-famous authority on bird photography (www.birdsasart.com), agrees. As he said in a message sent to naturArt, the picture certainly "looks like a phony." Morris boasts over 11,000 photos published in books and magazines worldwide, including NGM itself.
More recently, Joe Petersburger
published another version of the kingfisher photograph in his book Tisza Virágai(Mayflies of the River Tisza,
(forum.fotoklikk.hu/albums/album04/k_nyv.sized.jpg).
It depicts the exact same scenario, except that items in the slow-flowing water appear to have been displaced, while the supposedly fast-moving bird remains in exactly the same position as in the NGM photo. "Now this makes no sense whatsoever, " says Kalotás of naturArt. "By the time the water moved a few centimeters, the bird should have moved at least a meter. But it didn't. There's only one explanation: the pictures are fakes." naturArt members published an animated image, displaying the exact differences between the two photos, at
When confronted about naturArt's claims, both Szentpéteri and NGM denied the accusations. "The photographic coverage in question was researched by our staff and by outside scientific experts. We recently subjected the coverage to a thorough reexamination by our staff and outside scientific experts. We are confident that it meets our rigorous journalistic standards, " NGM said in a terse statement. However, according to naturArt, both Szentpéteri (Joe Petersburger) and NGM refused to comment on the specific claims, which naturArt says have yet to be publicly refuted by named experts. This is not the first time Szentpéteri has tried to pass off studio photos as nature photography, naturArt says. At the association's prestigeous "Hungarian Nature Photographer of the Year" contest in 1996, Szentpéteri's photos were disqualified following loud protests by biologists and photographers attending the public judging of the anonymous competition. The identity of Josef L. Szentpéteri was only established after the pictures he entered were exposed as fakes featuring stuffed animals No formal action was taken againts the photographer, a very young man at the time. "We just hoped he would learn his lesson. Apparently we were wrong," says Kalotás. According to naturArt, it's in NGM's best interest to enlist named, independent experts to investigate naturArt's claims, and publish the results of the investigation. "Keeping quiet seriously undermines not only NGM's own reputation, but also that of nature photography itself," says Kármán, stressing that naturArt's primary goal is to protect the integrity of nature photography. "A true nature photographer shows incredible respect and humility towards nature, and will never, by principle, engage in falsification or manipulation. The fakes we've discovered testify to an attitude that's in total defiance of nature photography ethics. We hope that a magazine as renowned as NGM respects these principles, and will break its silence regarding this unfortunate case." Andrew Davidhazy, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology's famed School of Photographic Arts and Sciences (http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/resume.html) , believes that naturArt's report does not "mark the end of natural and truthful photography," though it does point out that photography is not necessarily a reflection of reality. Davidhazy is otimistic. As he says in a statement sent to naturArt, "That some people do not tell the truth does not mean that the rest are also deceitful and liars."
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