Every so often, there seems to be an image that gets into a photography competition that stirs up some controversy.
In March 2026, London Camera Exchange announced the overall winner of their competition with an image taken in Hoi An, Vietnam. The image was entitled “fish eyes” and depicted a local fisherman who works on the Thu Bon River.
The image has stirred up feelings amongst local photographers because it was being touted as unique and a candid moment. But for those of us who know the fisherman in question and have regularly photographed him, there is huge doubt to the claim. Especially so as some of his have captured him in a similar pose during our own sessions.
For my own part, I’ve been photographing Mr Muoi since 2023. That first session produced an image that ended up being given a special mention in the annual Travel Photographer of the Year.
Fast forward several months, and by this time, I was living in Hoi An and had started to regularly go out photographing various fishermen along the river. I had started to build up an extensive portfolio of people who still practice what is called ru fishing, which is essentially the big net that they use to catch their fish.
In July 2024, I had seen an image of Mr Muoi holding up one fish to his eye. Inspired by this, I went out on 11 July 2024 to photograph him again, but with the aim of getting him to hold not one fish up to his eye but two to create a more unique image.
At the end of the session, he came over to the boat for his payment. It was at this point that I asked if he could do a portrait. Amenable as always, he picked up a fish and held it up to his eye. But I asked if, instead, he would put two up, which he gladly did.
Imagine to my surprise, when a couple of weeks ago I am shown an image that bears a striking resemblance to my own. An image that, up until this point, I had only seen my own version. I had never seen Muoi put two fish to his eyes only ever one.
So there is, quite rightly, controversy surrounding the wording of the winner when she claims to have captured a candid moment with a fisherman in Hoi An, Vietnam.
According to the photographer, it was her first time visiting Vietnam. The likelihood of somebody who was visiting Vietnam for the first time and being able to go straight there without the help of somebody and without prior knowledge of images, such as that of the fisherman, is, to be honest, a little unbelievable.
If you visit Hoi An, you don’t just stumble upon these fishermen. You have to do some research beforehand to even know they are there, and then you need to be able to hire a boat to get you out there, plus know the right person to call the fisherman in the first place.
My own image, illustrated here, was posted to Instagram in April 2025. I hadn’t been updating my social media in a while, but started up again around this time, and this particular image was part of a carousel.
One thing that I always do before posting images anywhere is register them with the US Copyright Office. The image here was registered on August 6th 2024, under batch number VAu001538102.
Now, we all get inspired by different things, such as photography, music or other artistic things, but it seems a bit of a stretch to say publicly that this was a unique moment. Certainly, the local guide who took her out there would likely have known just how often the fisherman is photographed.
Did Ms Spurgin see my image before creating her own? Did she see the Vietnamese photographer’s versions where he’s only holding one fish up to his eye? It’s difficult to say, and we’ll likely never know.
As a professional photographer, I’ve had a couple of other instances in recent years of taking people on a photo tour where they get an image thanks to my guidance, then claim in a competition that they miraculously did everything on their own or the back story behind the image has changed to something wholly different.
It is frustrating when people airbrush out the facts behind the image, and it quite rightly annoys people when the facts get distorted to fit a narrative.
Take, for example, a photo tour that I ran in Scotland in early 2024. I had a group of three people, and we had atrocious weather, as can be typical of Scotland in January.
Two back-to-back Atlantic storms pummeled their way across the Scottish Highlands, which made getting out difficult to say the least.
As a photography tour leader, it’s my job to read the weather and see where we can safely go. So, imagine my surprise when one of the group puts a photo in from the tour and claims that they “found themselves braving the ferocious storms Isha and Jocelyn”. OK, so you weren’t quite on your own. Someone had led you there in the first place, reading the weather and showing you where to go.
In December 2023, I was doing some reconnaissance work in South Central Vietnam. I was trying to find some people who repaired yellow fishing nets and, with the help of my Vietnamese ground agent, was given the means to get there.
Tagging along was an Italian photographer. The lady had, quite literally, gate-crashed a shoot I was doing a couple of days earlier. I was photographing the salt workers when she came running in, saying she had been trying to find them forever.
Stopping her and explaining that it was a private shoot, I, in the end, invited her to come along with me.
The next day, we photographed the family who repaired the yellow yets. A location that she never would have found if she had been on her own. But in the evening, she came to me and said that her memory card had become corrupted, and was it possible to go back again.
However, before that happened, I managed to find a way for her to retrieve her images, but I had also arranged with the driver to go back again to the family the next morning.
The next day, we were nearly back at the family when she asked where we were going. I explained that it had been arranged for us to go back again, to which she asked, “But it’s OK, I got my images, so we don’t need to!” Too late, I said, and in any case, we’re nearly there.
Standing in front of the family, I noticed that the light was infinitely better than in the afternoon. It was also softer as it seemed to be falling at a better angle.
But what struck me more was not the family sat down repairing the nets, but the daughter actually arranging them. The scene was much more interesting, and I noted this to the Italian photographer.
Now, it’s also worth stating that this Italian photographer had said to me that she was just an amateur. But quite frankly, from what I’ve seen of what she’s doing, she seems to be anything but.
I just don’t understand why it is that in the photography fraternity, there seems to be this undercurrent. Why do people try to take great advantage of others?
