Award-winning photographer Souvid Datta has been accused of doctoring an image taken by another award-winning photographer Mary Ellen Mark and passing it off as his own.
Datta took a number of pictures in Kolkata's Sonagachi, one of South East Asia's largest red-light areas. The series, documenting sexual violence among adult sex workers and children, started gaining popularity in 2014. Petapixel reported that a reader and a fan of Mary Ellen Mark, Shreya Bhat of Bengaluru, brought it to their attention that Datta had used one Mark's works to insert in his photo and pass it as his own.
Image produced by Souvid Datta
(petapixel)
Image by Mary Ellen Mark (below)
(petapixel)
Datta gained early success in his field and became an example to look up to, until this week. He has won the Getty Images Editorial Grant, an Alexia Foundation award, the Visura Photojournalism Grant, and a LensCulture/Magnum Photos award. The photo project in Kolkata, named 'In the Shadows of Kolkata' became the highlight of his career.
After the accusations, Datta admitted doctoring the images and copyright infringement in an interview with TIME. He said, that when the girl’s mentor asked not to be photographed, he cloned out a subject from a photograph by Mary Ellen Mark and pasted it in his own photograph. In hindsight, Datta calls what he did a 'damning mistake.'
This is not the only accusation made against Datta. Another photojournalist, Daniele Volpe, is also accusing Datta of stealing his work by posting them as his own in his social media accounts. Speaking about Volpe, in the interview, Datta said, "As I learned more about being a photojournalist, I grew ashamed of what I had done during more desperate moments of my life. And as my embarrassment deepened, I suppressed it in the foolish hope that those mistakes would fade away from memory – deleting appropriated photos [from photographer Daniele Volpe] from early trips to Guatemala for instance, but not coming clean publicly. I will be the first to admit that it is terribly sad that it has taken this kind of exposure for me to step forward."
Alexia Foundation has put out a statement saying that they have commenced an investigation in Datta's work which led him to receive an Excellence Grant from the foundation in 2013.
Apart from Alexia Foundation, Pulitzer Centre and LensCulture have also suspended the profile pages of Datta on their websites because of ethical concerns.
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 "Mary Ellen Mark, Souvid Datta, plagiarism, Sonagachi, Falkland Road, Web Exclusive")
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