Hasta La Ideas

“My parents live very close to the city airport and every other year they host an air show,” explained amateur photographer William Lascelles in his submission to National Geographic‘s “Your Shot” program, which features extraordinary user-submitted photography. “This year the Blue Angels were the highlight and were flying over the house during performances. I took my father’s dog outside and made him pose!” That gee-whiz caption accompanied this image:

Alas, Lascelles’s “lucky shot” turned out to be less than lucky: it was the product of digital manipulation (prohibited by Your Shot rules) and National Geographic is not amused. The photo, which was selected by senior photo editor Susan Welchman to appear on the Your Shot site last October, was published in the February 2010 issue of National Geographic. After several readers insisted that the photo was a fake, the publication investigated further. Lascelles ultimately admitted to fabricating the picture as well as a similar one he sent to Welchman when she requested the next photo in his shooting sequence. National Geographic has issued an apology for publishing the image and will continue giving anyone a shot to have a photo featured in the magazine. Just make it real. “The world is already full of visual artifice, and we aren’t running Your Shot to add to it,” notes director of photography David Griffin. “We want to see the world through your eyes, not the tools of Photoshop.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.