(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-07 17:13

BEIJING - The Chinese photographer who forged an award-winning photograph has apologized for his bad behavior.

Monday's People's Day reported that Zhang Liang, a former photographer of Harbin Daily, admitted that he added a pigeon to a photo using Photoshop software. The photo was taken in February 2004 and showed pigeons receiving bird flu vaccine shots from medical workers in front of Sophia Cathedral in Harbin.

The photo won the top prize in the first China International Press Photo Contest, held by the Photojournalist Society of China (PSC) in 2005.

"I would like to apologize to the public," said Zhang, who had been dismissed from Harbin Daily four days ago.

According to Zhang, he copied the pigeon in the top right corner of his photo and pasted it in the top left corner.

"I did it to make the photo perfect," Zhang was quoted by the newspaper, "It was the first time for me to perfect pictures with computer technology and I did it only once."

Last Thursday, the PSC cancelled the award granted to Zhang's photo after an expert panel confirmed it was forged.

But the society has been under criticism that it had been slow on the uptake.

The photo was first questioned online last April by netizens and Xu Lin, a PSC official.

Late last month, Jiang Duo, one of the judges for the contest and former PSC vice-chairman, quit because of the society's ambiguous attitude toward the forgery accusation.

Jiang made an online apology for not being able to identify the forgery, while acknowledging the photo as a fake.

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