So my house was broken into yesterday while my housemates and I were all at work. They took laptops and cameras from everyone’s rooms, then they got to mine, and cleaned me out of pretty much all my digital kit, and a couple of 35mm film cameras too.

If I was insured, I’d be able to get at least the digital kit back so I can keep doing jobs to raise money for the other stuff; unfortunately I’m young and stupid, and never thought this would happen to me, so I never got the insurance.

However, it was a further kick in the balls for me, because they also took my backup drives, with the last two years’ worth of photos on them. Literally, tens of thousands of photos were on them, as well as family photos which I really cherished, but don’t have on my laptop (which was with me at work).

Here’s a list of kit that was taken from me, in case anybody comes across a bunch of stuff being sold that looks dodgy. They were bundled away in a brown leather bag that was in my room too like this one:

-Nikon D5000 (the rubber eyepiece on the viewfinder is torn, making it quite distinct, and it may well still have a Manfrotto tripod mount still fitted to the bottom.
-Nikkor AFS 50mm f1.4G (It had a Hoya UV filter on the front)
-Nikkor AFS 24-70mm f2.8 (Again, this also had a Hoya UV filter)
-Nikon SB-700 (They left the case behind, so it’s without the diffuser, gels or stand)
-Pentax Spotmatic F 35mm body (silver)
-Carl Zeiss 24mm f2 M42 mount lens
-Zorki 6 rangefinder
-Yashica Minister III (broken film spool)
-2 500GB external hard drives (2.5” hard drive form factor, both in black cases, one is pretty much empty and has a plastic case, one is almost full of photos and other backups of data I have)

They also took a hacked PSP slim, a white Nintendo DS lite with an R4 packed with games, and a black 30GB 5th generation iPod (the first video one)

I guess the lessons to be learned here are a few.

-First of all, back up your shit to the cloud. If mine was, I’d still have it, unless somebody stole the internet.
-Secondly, insure your shit, so you can at least get some of it back.
-Third, hiding your kit doesn’t do any good- burglars do a thorough search! Instead, never underestimate the power of double locking your front door.
-Fourth, kind of linked to the last point, invest in an alarm system. This helps your insurance quote too.
-Fifth, nobody’s stuff is truly safe. Burglaries happen. Fact.

So basically I have to start from scratch all over again. The first step is to start saving for a Nikon D7000 body, which will be a nice upgrade from my trusty D5000. They didn’t take my 35mm 1.8, so at least I have a very good, versatile lens left which I can use! My technical skills and experience I’ve gained are still there too; they’ve mostly stolen my pride and some of my memories on the hard drives. Expect lots of iPhone photos over the next few months!