A picture of a snow leopard taken in Nepal by an American photographer Kittiya Pawlowski took the Internet by storm last month. Many news outlets and magazines circulated the picture widely while some experts doubted the authenticity of the magnificent photo.

Alpine International Magazine determined that the photograph of a snow leopard taken in the Everest region of Nepal was a forgery after conducting a fact-check.

The Alpine International Magazine is a publication run by mountain life, nature, and photography experts.

Pawlowski, since then, has deleted all her social media accounts and refused to talk about the controversy surrounding her famous work.

But amid all the tension, the 24-year-old photographer has now broken the silence.

She said that she never claimed to be a photojournalist and that her photos are all "edited and processed in Photoshop and Lightroom," in a Disclaimer on her website, KITTIYA. 

She adds, "News and media from around the world stole my images and published them with their own meaning. They did not ask me if they were edited. They interpreted them in their own way and spread them around the world. They told their followers that they were not edited. This is untrue, I always edit my images."

She also says that the snow leopard series on her website is to raise awareness of snow leopard conservation and that she sold over 50 copies of the series and donated over $780 to the Snow Leopard Trust. 

Pawlowski, now 24 years of age, has been experimenting with photographs since the age of 3 and says that photography is just her "side hobby."

She explained that the reason behind her deleting her social media accounts was the number of death threats she was receiving every day.