Stanford Slabbert image apologies to SABC MyZA

The video below, by sabcdigitalnews and posted on YouTube refers – take note of the image of Stanford Slabbert between 5 and 10 seconds into the video.

At first I got really excited as I clearly recall taking this image on the occasion of a pre-2010 World Cup exercise at the Life St. Georges Hospital on 1 February 2010 at 11:31:34 and distinctly remember it as I spent some time removing the background to make it the default image for Stanford Slabbert’s Ward 1 on MyPE.

“Fame at last,” I thought, girding my loins and making plans for a deluge of visitors to MyPE. My happy thoughts faded though as I failed to see the www.MyPE.co.za watermark that I apply to all images appear on the image used by the SABC News Team.

I shamefully admit that I then cursed the SABC, the air was blue, the kids closed their doors and put their headphones on, the dogs howled, the cats hissed and the Longhair pulled the duvet cover over her head.

Why Shamefully?

Calming down I did what any normal “journalist” on a tight time schedule does when looking for images – I turned to Google Images and did a search for Stanford Slabbert. Sure enough one of the MyPE images of Stanford is the first result and the second is the one that I took of Stanford on 1 February 2010, BUT, it is on a different site to MyPE – praag.org, bugger.

Now on praag.org the watermark has been lifted/cut off/denied and not a mention of MyPE – no accreditation, no thank you, nothing, nada, niks. Come on praag.org – you are not the New Age or The Herald – a little accreditation (even in 5 point font size) would go so much toward making the sweat, tears, terror and horror (Oh the horror!) that I went through for the photograph worth it! (The image on praag.org is one that appeared in the old MyPE Gallery that I was forced to remove from the site this month.)

I feel as rejected now as I did on the day when I, as a victim during a pre-2010 World Cup exercise to save ‘patients’ from a ‘burning building’, was left behind in an apparent pogrom attempt to rid the world of pesky journalists and photographers, but I survived and escaped via the Mountain Club’s intervention.

So, my heartfelt apologies for taking your name in vain, SABC and I wait in heady anticipation for praag.org to right their wrong and acknowledge the blood, sweat and tears that I went through to photograph Stanford Slabbert on the roof of the Life St Georges Hospital, Port Elizabeth.

See the images below for a more graphical representation – the smaller one is the one as lifted from praag.org the larger two are the original and the ‘photoshopped’ version.