The Associated Press has cut it’s ties to Pulitzer Prize winner Narciso Contreras after it came out that he had doctored one of his recent images of the Syria conflict.

Contreras removed a video camera from his original image because he felt it would be distracting. He later told the agency about his editing of the image which has lead to a review and removal of all his other work.

“AP’s reputation is paramount and we react decisively and vigorously when it is tarnished by actions in violation of our ethics code,” Santiago Lyon, AP vice president and director of photography said. “Deliberately removing elements from our photographs is completely unacceptable.”

“I took the wrong decision when I removed the camera … I feel ashamed about that,” Contreras said. “You can go through my archives and you can find that this is a single case that happened probably at one very stressed moment, at one very difficult situation, but yeah, it happened to me, so I have to assume the consequences.”