Well-known photographer and Instagram star Daryl Aiden Yow recently came under fire for plagiarizing others’ work and posting it as his own photography on his Instagram account.
This Singaporean influencer rose to fame as a photographer and later became even more famous when he became associated with Andrea Chong, who also happens to be a famous Instagram star and fashion blogger.
Nevertheless, Yow got caught out as an imposter when Mothership, a popular news site in Singapore, received an anonymous tip about Yow’s acts of plagiarism.
The news site then went on to conduct a full-on investigation, only to find that most of the photographs posted on Yow’s Instagram account had an uncanny resemblance to many stock photos from sources like Shutterstock, Unsplash, and CanStockPhoto.
Of course, he had made small changes here and there, like enhancing their color or changing their composition, but for the most part, it was pretty clear that Yow had “borrowed” the images from other professionals.
Upon making this discovery, Mothership contacted Yow with their findings.
Shortly after, Yow conducted an interview with another news site called Today, where he still maintained that all of the images on his Instagram account were taken by him, and this included the vibrant array of fashion, travel and food beauty shots that so enthralled his followers.
However, as time went by, the evidence just kept piling up against Yow and it became increasingly difficult for him to deny the allegations.
For example, a photograph he had claimed of shooting while in Santorini, was found by a follower on Shutterstock, whereas one of his supposed shots of the Faroe Islands was later revealed to have come from the @visitfaroeislands Instagram account.
Seeing the damning nature of the evidence piled against him, Yow eventually caved in and admitted to the allegations through an apology which he issued out to his 104,000 Instagram followers.
In the apology, Yow admitted to have wrongly claimed others’ work as his own and apologized for disappointing his followers and the people who had believed in him.
He also apologized for using misleading captions that made it seem as though the photographs he was posting were taken by him using his own camera equipment.
BBC also caught wind of the story and later reported that Yow had gained such notoriety in photography circles that he had managed to attract the attention of big name brands such as Oppo, Uniqlo and even Sony, who promoted Yow in one of its campaigns.
Needless to say, Sony has since distanced itself from Yow, with a representative of the company stating that they take a very “serious stance” on plagiarism and that they in no way condone Yow’s actions.
Since the whole debacle unraveled, Yow has decided to start afresh and deleted all of the images from his Instagram account, except for the apology he issued of course.
However, it seems that Yow will have to do something drastic to gain the trust of his followers again, as most of them haven’t hesitated to voice their discontent with his actions.
Well, you know what they say, everyone deserves a second chance, right? –
