Prize-winning Tibet train photo faked

BEIJING: It was intended to reveal the harmonious coexistence of high-technology and wildlife. In the foreground a herd of endangered Tibetan antelopes scurry across an arid plain while in the background an express train thunders over the recently completed Qinghai-Tibet rail line. The image was hailed in China because it appeared to show that the controversial railway was having no major impact on wildlife.

Photographer Liu Weiqiang said later he had gone to extraordinary lengths to get the image. “It took only seconds for the antelopes to pass, but I had waited for eight days,’ he told the 2006 Most Influential News Photos of the Year awards ceremony — organised by CCTV China’s state television — at which he won a medal. It was an image that owed much to patience and skill, it was claimed.

In fact, the picture owed everything to Photoshop — for the juxtaposition of antelopes and train is fake, Liu has admitted, after web postings questioned its authenticity.

‘The train was real and so were the antelopes. But the magic moment didn’t happen,’ he said. Frustrated, he merged a photograph of the train with one of the antelopes.

The revelation about the picture, reproduced by 200 media outlets, has caused massive embarrassment in China. Liu has been dismissed from the Daqing Evening News while its editor has also been forced to resign.