the sudden, tragic, and very dramatic death of a friend.

I guess it is better to burn out than it is to rust.


A sudden slip and a sickening sound. My camera was resting quietly on a table—or a table cloth, rather, on that table—when my client accidentally tugged the cloth, and off my $10,000 camera+lens went.

The lens cracked off the body right at the base. It was horrific.

Unbelievably (and I still don't believe it), my camera was unharmed. For insurance purposes, this is actually a bad thing, as the lens loss itself is not enough to justify a claim. But it is enough to make me eat two grand that I did not need to lose right now.

The saddest, perhaps, is that this isn't just a lens. I've had it for over 4 years, and it's made tens of thousands of photographs for me—including most of my best photographs—so its loss actually hurts my feelings, not just my pocketbook.

So now comes my mourning ceremony: I will dissect the lens piece by piece, salvage what I can, and send it respectfully off to the landfill.