Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
As you know, my gear was stolen in broad daylight as the camera was rolling two weeks ago in a public San Francisco park.
Another photographer got hit this week near San Francisco and way worse than I did. He was parked near Battery Spencer Park in Sausalito, in the Marin Headlands, which offers one of the best views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and thieves bashed in his SUV windows and fled with multiple cameras, computers, hard drives, and more.
One night two years ago, someone stole $10,000 of my camera equipment. Just recently, I found one of my more iconic lenses — a pink Handevision 40mm f/0.85 Mark II — for sale online. The police are slow to respond, and eBay won’t help until law enforcement is involved.
My name is Nathan Cowlishaw, but my business and brand as a professional tour guide are Nathan Arizona, LLC, and Talking Tree Photo. I’m a professional Southwestern Interpretive Tour Guide of 17 years, a landscape photographer, and an avid traveler of the American Desert Southwest. I run a small Instagram account where I post recent images of some of these travels.
On December 31st, 2019 — New Year’s Eve — I was just wrapping up a commercial tour I had conducted to Antelope Canyon, in Page, Arizona — which is one of the most popular photography destinations in Arizona on the Navajo Nation — when I went into the office to clock out for the evening and head home. As a creature of habit, I never leave my expensive gear in my vehicle and it was routine to take it into work.
That night though, for some strange reason I can’t explain and still regret, I left my camera gear in my Jeep Cherokee 4×4 on the front seat of the passenger side just long enough to clock out. In that short time frame, someone came along, smashed the window of my SUV, and stole $10,000 in camera equipment.
It’s the kind of cruel irony you see in a scene from a movie or a TV show or something. Don Ford, a reporter for KPIX 5 News was shooting a story on the rise of robberies in San Francisco’s Twin Peaks neighbourhood since certain roads were closed off due to the pandemic. These roads had previously led to tourist attractions, but with local thieves’ main targets no longer visiting that area, they’ve restored to robbing the people that live there instead.
Ford was interviewing nearby homeowners about the robbers when a “white luxury sedan” vehicle pulled up outside one of the homes, three men stepped out, with a fourth remaining in the vehicle, and robbed Ford at gunpoint, proclaiming “we’re taking the camera”.
Along with online shopping getting more popular than ever, it seems that online scammers are also getting more widespread. Photographer Scott Kelby nearly had his $1,450 Canon EOS-R stolen due to an online scam. So, he shared his story as a cautionary tale to help you avoid these kinds of frauds.
It’s every photographer and filmmaker’s worst nightmare. You pop your bag full of gear down on the ground, turn around for a moment, turn back and it’s gone. Just missing. Well, that’s exactly what happened to YouTuber and filmmaker Chris Hau. On Friday the 13th, of all days.
While out on a shoot, he had his bag stolen from right behind him containing his Sony A7S III, 16-35mm f/2.8 GM, 24-70mm f/2.8 GM, 24mm f/1.4 GM and Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 lenses along with a bunch of other accessories with a total value of a little over $17,000.
It happens that gear theft gets caught on security cameras. But a very weird footage was captured at an anti-racism rally in Toronto this Sunday. A thief was caught on camera while stealing a backpack full of camera gear – and it was all filmed by the gear’s very owner.
On Saturday, thieves smashed a photographer’s car window and stole all the gear that was inside. The theft left Manchester-based photographer Kenny Clayton not only without ~$9,000 worth of gear but also without all the photos he has done in the last five years.
On Thursday, 16 May 2019, The Camera Store in Canada was robbed. A man took a Sony A7R III and Sony 16-35mm F2.8 G Master lens, and when the staff tried to stop him – the man attacked them with bear spray and managed to escape.
As mentioned previously on this site, I use the Fat Llama website to loan out some of my photography gear when not in use, and I’ve been very happy with the extra beer money… well up until last week that is, as my camera kit was stolen!
Let’s rewind a bit and go through exactly what happened, how I was dealt with by the Fat Llama team and my thoughts on how to better protect yourself if you use Fat Llama or something similar.
Photographer Hugh Lloyd recently had his gear stolen at Rome Ciampino airport in Italy. And as if it weren’t bad enough, in his gear bag there were memory cards with all the photos of his friends’ wedding. The distressed couple has made a public plea to the thieves to at least return the memory cards, and they’re hoping that it will reach whoever took the camera with the cards.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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