I’ve not updated in a while. I’ve simply been unable to face doing so.
The entire purpose of this site is as a record of my travels. Photography plays a huge part of my travels and of my memories
Photography has been one of the things that has kept me going over the years. Wether taking the images themselves, editing them, sharing them with whoever I can get to look or just plain viewing them myself and remembering good times when I am feeling trapped at home.
Two things have happened that have me wondering if I am ever going to pick up a camera again.
An almost unbelievable chain of events.
Upon my return to Guernsey the hard drive in my iMac crashed on the first boot. I don’t know the reason why, all I know that is that it died and took every bit of content on the drive with it.
This is why we keep a backup.
My backup drive died as well.
Yes, two drive both dead. Neither is salvageable without sending it off to a data recovery expert. It is that one small light at the end of the tunnel that had kept me sane.
I have lost nearly everything
In short I have lost nearly every photograph that I had taken between the purchase of my first digital camera in 1999 and when I left Guernsey to go traveling last August.
Everything from my recent trip is safe – and currently on three separate hard drives. I also had all the photos from my 2011 trip to Hong Kong on my old portable drive.
Beyond that if it wasn’t on Flickr or this website, then it has gone.
In short – 12 years worth of social occasions, birthdays, Christmases etc.
Steve & Gina’s Wedding
Kenyan Safari
Crossing the USA
Morocco
Barcelona
Various French holidays
Ibiza
… and much, much more. I’m sure you get the picture.
A further kick in the teeth
I went to Geneva recently. There are a few photographs below, but I’ve not written anything. That is because of the 2nd thing that has happened.
I have lost my camera equipment.
We went out to the galleries and museums. We stopped at a pub, and then a couple more. Somewhere along the line I left my bag in one of them.
We retraced our steps the next day, but no-one had handed it in.
I can only assume dishonesty
My bag contained my camera body, four lenses, a flash, a camera grip and a spare battery.
It also contained the notebook that I took around the world with me. A notebook that had all the notes that I had made. Names and e-mail addresses of people I met along the way. Sketches that I made. Silly little things like words and translations written down during conversations that I’d had with people as we tried to understand one another.
A little book that means nothing to anyone else, but is irreplaceable in regards to its contents.
Every single piece of equipment in that bag is marked with my name, my e-mail address and the address of this website. In the pockets were copies of the small business cards that I gave to people when I met them. Those cards also show my contact information.
It is my fault that I misplaced the bag. I let my guard down and paid the price. That I accept. However, someone out there has picked that bag up and rather then doing the decent thing and contacting me, they have decided to do the opposite and that I find hard to accept.
A small mercy
It’s been a couple of weeks since I lost my gear. Coming so soon after losing my entire archive has simply left me numb and completely flat.
I don’t have the means to replace my equipment at this time. Right now I’m not even sure if I want to. I’m not sure if its even worth it.
But then I am still raw right now.
I booted up an old laptop a little earlier and got a huge boost. For there on the hard drive is all the raw unedited shots from my trip to Morocco.
That particular trip marked a turning point for me. I’d acquired a good grounding over the years through trial and error. But I’d never really had any tuition before, and it was really that trip where I started to shoot the things that I’d wanted to shoot, in a style that I liked rather then just taking staid landscape shots. Not that I’ve ever really stopped taking landscape shots.
It was that experience that first made me think that photography was something that I could be good at. It is good to be reminded of that right now.
DigiDonkey 