- Trending
- Comments
- Latest
After three years marooned in the UK by COVID, airlines and governments that couldn’t form a unitary travel policy, I finally got back to my home near Cape Town in February.
The plan was to start emptying the house and put it on the market. Over almost a month, I managed to corral the valuables, papers and precious things collected over almost fifty years, securing them in a locked storeroom, before returning to London in March.
As is so often the case in South Africa, there wasn’t much interest in property sales and by September, I was back on a plane to try and move the process along.
Three days after arriving and during one of the regular power outages that characterise life in South Africa, the darkness won and I decided on an early night.
Wednesday morning, I discovered the thieves that have been burgling homes in the area for months, had paid me a nocturnal visit too. Gone were my MacBook Pro, phone and iPad. Along with those valuables, a lot of small stuff, including my backpack, spare multifocal glasses, rain jacket and…
…a lifetime’s collection of Nikon camera kit. My D800e, and much loved D700, plus a large carry case loaded with lenses, from the manual 50mm f1.4 and spectacular 28mm f2.8 to my 500mm mirror lens. Gone. Everything.
Pascal’s article about missing gear was poorly timed and took on a particular note for me.
Fortunately, everything was insured, but largely irreplaceable. I’ll content myself with memories of the D700.
Like what you are reading? Subscribe below and receive all posts in your inbox as they are published. Join the conversation with thousands of other creative photographers.
