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I have a lot of amazing people in my life. When things went bad they were there to support me.

I'll be thanking people throughout this comeback series.

This is dedicated to my Kuboski family, Mike M., Samantha, and my parents who gave me some money and gift cards specifically to be used to replace some of my photography equipment. I love you guys

Thank you!

Setup:
(1) SB25 into a 43" Apollo Orb, camera left and angled down.
(2) Background is Savage White
(3) Nikon D90 + 35mm f1.8
(4) Triggered with Cybersyncs
(5) Victory song playing when I finally saved this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbbq0_A682c

I lost it all in a fire in the beginning of September. With the help of some amazing people, I was able to rebuild my hobby in under 4 months.

I'll be thanking people throughout this comeback series.

First and most important, thanks to Eric, Viviene, the Ritschdorffs', and Jodie for doing the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me. They chipped in and got me a camera, lens, and a laptop loaded with the photography programs I lost. I don't know how to ever thank them on the level that I want to.

Thank you!

Setup:
(1) SB25 into a 43" Apollo Orb, camera left and angled down.
(2) Background is Savage White
(3) Nikon D90 + 35mm f1.8
(4) Triggered with Cybersyncs

Dear peoples,

It's been a little bit over 2 months now since a fire claimed everything I owned. Since then, with the help of some amazing friends, I've been able to replace a lot of my photography equipment. More appropriate "thank yous" will be given in the first series I shoot once this set up is complete.

In the meantime, I've set up a second flickr account just so I have something to upload in the mean time. This account is strictly my Iphone stuff. Anyway, you can check that account at:
www.flickr.com/photos/cawfeewithrdrev/
or you can follow me on Instagram @Cawfee

(Facebook has limits on how much you can write at a time, so I'm putting this up to answer the general questions I'm getting flooded with.)

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 I lost everything I own.

So that sounds dramatic but it is true. I moved out to San Francisco for a job on short notice in June. It was the job I wanted in the city I wanted to live in. I threw away most of my life, fit just what mattered into my Camry and headed West. I have to extend a huge thanks to my friend Mike for giving me a place to sleep while I searched for an apartment, which is pretty brutal these days. After what seemed like a million emails and a number of interviews I went to see this apartment in Noe Valley, right around the block from where I was staying. These people turned out to be awesome. We hit it off. We laughed. We weeped. We decided it worked. And just like that I was part of this 4051 crew which consists not only the current roommates but basically a family of old roommates that have lived in the apartment over the past 7 years. It's kind of a neat thing they have going on here. So I got to know them during August, getting drinks at Valley Tavern (the bar right across the street), going out at night, getting food. Everything was just going the way it should. For once I had nothing to complain about. Everything was good. Everything was going better than good actually. I liked work, I liked the city, I liked who I was meeting. It was fun.

I moved into 4051 officially on Sept 2nd. I had the back room by the kitchen which was a converted dining room. It was nice to have a home... and a new bed after basically squatting at my friends place for 2 months. Friday was best night I've had in SF. I met up with Kaisha and her boyfriend for drinks in the mission followed by drinks with my housemates/extended housemates. There was a short stint at Happy Donuts (get bacon on your sausage, egg, and cheese) and 5 of us ended up in one bed going through one of Stellas awful books before calling it a night.

Saturday, we were all scattered. Me and Stella were downtown shopping when we got a call from our roommate Gonzalo that there was a fire. We raced home to find 24th street blocked off, several fire trucks and what seemed like hundreds of people lining the street watching our lives covered in smoke. Thankfully no one got hurt but the damage was extensive. I think this is the appropriate time to thank the following:
The firefighters
The Red Cross
Patix's Pizza for generously feeding us
Valley Tavern for providing us a home for a few hours and giving us drinks.
All of Noe Valley - The people in this neighborhood are amazing and there is a fundraiser for us in the works either this weekend or the coming weekends.

The fire devastated the back of the apartment and spread through. We were able to go up there Sunday morning to salvage whatever we could. Unfortunately, the back, the kitchen, and the back room were completely destroyed... the back room was mine. They let me go look at it but I couldn't go in due to the structural damage. Even the fire fighters were amazed. My suitcase filled with my clothes (I was shopping around for a closet) melted away. The new bed I bought disintegrated, leaving only the metal springs of the box spring. Pictures of my room in the comments.

So, what did I lose? Everything. It's an odd thing to think about but everything I owned (aside from my car and what I was wearing), everything that had meaning was destroyed.
-My camera, lenses, lighting, studio equipment, clothes... completely gone.
-My computer was on my bed. My poor macbook that had served me well over 4 years.
-My watch, the only watch I've owned since 2004. This had a lot of meaning to me. It was given to me by Ket as a present and when she explained why she did it she said "Joe would have wanted me to." Joe was more than a friend of the family, he was someone I admired. Unfortunately he passed away, so this watch was of special importance to me.
-All of my pictures from college. They had been sitting in this plastic drawer since 2004 and I've just been carrying them around since then. I think I have just about all of the pictures of my friends because I always had a disposable camera with me. I used to grab a stack of them every few months and just remember the good times. They melted along with the negatives.
-Every picture I have ever taken/printed is gone. They were backed up on 3 hard drives all of which were destroyed. So, anything you see on flickr here, any picture of Ellie I had... gone. The funny thing is I was planning on wiping my flickr account clean and restarting on Friday. The only reason I didn't is I was late to drinks with Kaisha.
...I randomly took a walk Saturday night after the fire was out, opened my trunk and there was a box of Ellie's stuff I had and a photobook with a few photos in it, including my two favorites of her. So, that was nice to see tucked away under some junk.

So I'm a photographer with no pictures and no camera. Yea. Every picture I've ever taken since 1999 is gone.

The question I consistently get is if I had renters insurance. I didn't. I was only living there a week and it was on my list of things to do this month. But renters insurance doesn't cover pictures.
The other question: how did it start? We don't know. It was an old building so possibly electrical.
And again, no one got hurt.

So what happens now? We're figuring that out. We are homeless but we have a solid group of people that are letting us stay with them. Most importantly we are looking for a place to live, hopefully in Noe Valley. Hopefully with no fire damage. Some how we manage to keep finding things to laugh about (Mike: "Randy, I'm going to help you move your stuff to my place...done" or Sam:"Randy, I'm going to do your laundry... done"). I think mostly it's nervous laughter, but anything helps.

So what about this above picture? I find it amusing and it was never meant to be anything but something on Facebook. It's the last picture I took with my camera. I was trying out some lighting in my room a couple of days before so I could take head shots of my roommates. I was tired. My eyes hurt. Several pictures in this shot happened by accident and I kept it. Now it is oddly fitting. Switch the tiredness with sadness and it tells a better story. As for the title, I've been addicted to this song for a few weeks and I've been trying to figure out a way to make it a picture. Given the circumstance, it works.

Now, the thing that amazes me is the support from friends and family. If you're reading this and have sent me a message, thank you and I'm sorry if I haven't responded yet. As for the people out here -
Mike O'Keefe - seriously
Gonzalo
Stella
Sam
Rachel
Katie
Ben
Sarah
You've all been fantastic.

My friends that have been keeping me busy and trying to help:
Eric
Weber
Mike M.
Max
Leslie
Lesa
Heather
Tom
Cody
Schmitty
Steve
Sabrina
Kaisha
...I'm forgetting so many and I'm sorry but I can't think straight. I love you guys.

So photography is on hold indefinitely... and I guess I have to embrace walking around naked (I should fit in in the Haight or Castro). I'm going to take a break from photography for a while. I'll get a new camera eventually. I guess this is a good time to upgrade.

So, I lost literally everything I owned... but I still have more than I could ask for.

Thank you,
Randy

How about some lighting info for fun?
1. non-melted SB24 bounced off a 42" umbrella, camera right on my side slightly behind me.
2. non-melted SB24 bounced off a 42" umbrella, camera left on my side slightly behind me.
3. non-melted Nikon D80 + 35mm f1.8
4. non-burnt Savage white paper
5. I like how the background is white... and now my room is black.

Videos of the fire:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHLXO4SvfQs
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHMhbZsxCTI <--here you can see my room on fire in the back

music:
Mumford and Sons, White Blank Page: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIOF5PDqM0
The song Gonzalo was listening to before he smelled smoke: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjoA4nYBD5U&ob=av2n