With my new OM-1 Mk II camera, I’m very busy rebuilding my portfolio and stock, taking as many photos as I can.

Although I have been taking photos for years, I don’t have many of my past shots because of computer changes and a lack of backup to an external hard drive. I went through three major changes in various Apple platforms over the years, and have lost pretty much the bulk of my work to these changes. One shift-over, a few years ago, I was in a bad place and simply said “f it,” and dumped all of my work. It is now a very painful memory for me, as I don’t have very important things, like my children’s pics growing up or visiting Disney World or other places. I’ve lost many great landscape shots I had taken over the years, and all of my modeling and musician pics. I never really cared about it all till now; I wish I had those images to go to and analyze to see how my photographic expertise grew. I even lost all of my birding photos from 2021-22.

I think of it a bit as leaving behind eras in my photographic lifespan, and now I’m starting a new one. I long to revisit old haunts, like Virginia barns and Civil War battlefields, the streets of Harper’s Ferry, Cape May, and especially the coast of Maine. So much history I have lost through my now-deleted photos. I think that, in some ways, it was an act of civil disobedience and also self-harm to a degree. But now I’m whole, and back in the game.