The picture is Wildlife opening the passage of life at the Qinghai-Tibet railway. In the 2006 CCTV news photos of the year it was a bronze medal winner. It was selected as one of the top 10 most memorable photographs of 2006 — and, sadly, was a PhotoShop compilation which is OK if you say so at the time.

When this was first reported on a blog and hundreds started looking at the picture for clues. The EXIF information (present on digital photographs indicated that the time when the photograph was taken was faked.

The award-winning photographer was Liu Weiqiang, who is presently the assistant director of the photography department at Daqing Evening News. He is a senior member of the Chinese Photographers Association and a special contracted Xinhua photographer.

Liu Weiqiang admitted: ‘The antelopes in the photograph are real. The overpass bridge is also real. But it was not easy to capture such a moment.’ Thus he created the picture with PhotoShop.

He said, ‘Actually, I hoped that this incident would blow up because more people will pay attention to the Tibetan antelopes.’

Which sounds sort of reasonable but at the CCTV Awards Presentation Ceremony transcript shows he said this:

Liu: ‘In the language of photography, this was an instant. It was a very brief moment. The Tibetan antelopes are smart and easily scared. When humans are even far away, they are already fleeing. When I took this photograph, I dug a hole half a meter deep and I put camouflage on top. I hid in the hole covered by camouflage. That was why the Tibetan antelopes came to pass in front of my camera. It took only a several seconds for the Tibetan antelopes to pass in front of me. But I had waited for eight days.’

You can see the picture in all its PhotoShop enhanced glory by clicking on Source.
Source: Chengdu Evening News via EastSouthWestNorth