Page 9 - Amateur Photographer - August 5, 2017

Never give away

the high res

WHILE Slater doesn’t regret taking
the monkey selfi e, he is kicking
himself for allowing his agent to
distribute the original high-res
version to the press when the
Wikipedia dispute fi rst erupted.
As he explains, ‘If you are
contacted by the press, give
them the smallest copy they
are happy with,’ he advises. ‘My
agent handed out the full-res
image in case somebody wanted
to turn it into a poster. We soon
lost control of it online, as bots are
trawling the internet all time for
the best quality images.’ © DAVID SLATER

‘This squirrel image displays great
personality, connecting us to nature’
The picture that launched a
lot of court cases - Naruto,
which is the name of the
monkey given to it by © DAVID SLATER
PETA, is doubtless blissfully
unaware of the furore © DAVID SLATER

contacts are failing, which is going wildlife photographers. ‘If it wins it from the effects of US sonar
to be expensive to fi x. I’m will open a can of worms. If equipment. It got thrown out, so
supposed to be a professional and animals own copyright on their why bring this case against me?
I am reduced to using knackered images, what about the past 100 PETA knows that there is no such
old gear.’ He continues, years of remote cameras, cameras thing as bad publicity. They don’t
‘Something has to change as I am strapped to animals, infrared traps care who it destroys in the
earning peanuts at the moment.’ triggered by wildlife, and so on?’ process. This has been its
He suspects the whole thing is a campaign strategy for years.’
Can of worms publicity stunt.
As well as making the monkey ‘PETA tried to bring lawsuits on Keep up to date with the case, and
selfi e an even more expensive behalf of animals before, including Slater’s subsequent response, at
picture for Slater, a PETA victory suing George Bush on behalf of www.facebook.com/DavidJSlater/.
would have implications for all dolphins who it said were suffering The PETA website is www.peta.org.
For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk ‘This giraffe image shows the sheer
elegance and beauty of nature’

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