If you follow this blog, or my wife’s (Operation ReNewton), you already know that on Christmas morning of 2009 our family home burned and we were lucky to get out unharmed. While we try to keep remembering that getting out is the most important thing, as the days pass and we deal with the loss of literally all our material possessions, I have to admit sometimes it’s hard.

Whether it’s the loss of silly sports memorabilia or a favorite sweatshirt, or a beloved piece of furniture with little monetary value but incalculable sentimental value such as my grandfather’s roll top desk, sometimes it’s hard not to feel sad despite the obvious blessing of getting out alive.

These days, for me, the loss of all my photos and camera equipment seems to dominate my darker moments. Playing the odds that a computer hard drive failure is much more likely than a devastating house fire, I had backed up all my photos to two different external hard drives. But alas, they resided in the very same house with the inferno, and last week I was informed by the data recovery experts that they could not retrieve my files. Approximately 40,000 high resolution digital images gone.

Our trip to Greece, the apex of a life spent traveling – gone.

All my experimental efforts with lighting and other techniques I’ve explored over the years – gone.

Concert photos, including some recent ones from U2 of which I was very proud given the difficult lighting and lack of press access with which to take them – gone. This list could go on forever, because I’m one of those annoying guys who carried a camera with me pretty much anywhere I went.

One of my regular assignments was to take photos of the kids and families at the Miracle League at Town & Country, a charitable organization for whom I’m proud to devote my time. I loved taking those photos, trying to find those moments when the kids would be expressing the joy of being out on that field with their buddies. I have had countless conversations with the families of the players, who would tell me that they loved this photo or that photo of their child. I have to admit those moments made me feel proud, and cemented my commitment to helping those kids have whatever moments of happiness I could help bring. But all those photos are now gone forever.

In addition to the photos lost, all my equipment was destroyed as well. A few days ago as Veek and I sifted through the rubble – as we do each weekend looking for something, anything, which could be resurrected – I spent 30 minutes with a rake combing through the ashes of our old office. I knew where my equipment had been stored, and where my camera bag was lying when the fire struck. It didn’t take long to start finding the remnants of the pieces.

First, in the area where an oak cabinet housed all my equipment, I began to find specialty cameras I used for occasional experimentation. My Argoflex box camera, built in the 1950′s, for which I built a contraption which allowed me to take a photo of its viewfinder with my 50mm lens, a style called “Through The Viewfinder” photography. My Lomo Fisheye II, an inexpensive film camera with an extremely wide angle lens to give a unique perspective to a routine scene. My strobe lighting equipment, solid backgrounds, plexiglass shelves to try out lighting techniques. All gone.

I know that I need to remain vigilant about remembering what we COULD have lost in that fire. We didn’t spend any time in a hospital, or god forbid, a morgue. “Stuff” is just “stuff”. I know that. But losing my cameras, losing all those source, high-resolution images, has pained me a great deal. I know that as we work through the multitude of issues related to rebuilding our home and our lives, obtaining new camera equipment is not going to be high on the list of items on which to spend money. It may be a year before I can even imagine saving the money to buy a similar high-end camera and lenses as I once had. And that saddens me.

But as with most everything since the fire, the amazing spirit of those around me has forced me to lift the clouds of my discontent. At least three friends with whom I share the passion of photography have offered the loan of equipment until I get my own again. A dear friend JB even sent me an original Russian Lomo which he said had been “sitting on a shelf in his house for years”, because he saw the photo of my burned up equipment and wanted to do something to help. These generous acts combine with all the other, countless acts of support and kindness which Veek and I have received, to keep my mind clear and focused on what’s really important.

So it may be awhile before you begin seeing lots of new entries to my galleries. But you can bet your ass that I’ll be using Veek’s little point and shoot which survived the fire at every opportunity, if only to make sure I’m taking photos of the luckiest family in Austin.