The winner of an international photo contest in southwest China was denied his award after the organizer found he had rotated someone else's picture in his entry.

Ren Shichen's photo (L) and the award-winning photo (R).

The organizer has issued an announcement on its official website and apologized to photographer Ren Shichen, who was shocked after seeing his picture on the award list under the name of Zhang Ziping last week.

The photo, which showed two villagers fetching water along winding mountain roads, was chosen out of more than 2,000 competition entries and won the 2010 International Photo Competition on People and Water, organized by website Sina.com and Clean Water Alliances, a non-government organization.

Zhang was accused of downloading Ren's work from the Internet and edited it with a simple rotation by computer software, reported the Western China Metropolis Daily today.

Ren said the photo was one of the 3,000 photos he took in February in 2007, when he toured impoverished villages in northern China.