Thank You DA, Such an Amazing Community

As many of you already know, on Friday my camera suffered an unfortunate accident while I was shooting on the shore of Rhode Island. While doing a long exposure, with my camera mounted on the tripod a rogue wave managed to knock it over into the sea, rendering the camera DOA. I was devastated and not in any financial position to even dream of replacing my camera. I was panicking, nervous and shocked. My only escape, my only creative outlet was now gone. What was I going to do? I came home later that day, logged onto DA and updated my journal, to break the bad news. [link]

The events following my journal update explaining this unfortunate event have me feeling nothing less than...everything. I am grateful, in awe, amazed, ecstatic, etc., etc. But mostly I am humbled. Upon reading my journal comments/replies Saturday morning, a fellow deviant :icon visual modality: who I had never met before outside DA, set up a ‘Chip In’ account to raise money for a replacement camera ([link]). This gesture was beyond generous & alone was enough to bring my spirits up considerably & restore my faith in humanity.

Throughout the weekend I was sent regular updates about the progress of the Chip In account from Tina, which included comments from fellow deviants & donations of various denominations. My inbox has been flooded with well wishes & support in many forms from deviants across the world. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined such an outreach from a community. In one weekend alone more than 90% of the goal had been reached. On Friday I had come to the realization that I would not be shooting again for a very long time, but by Sunday evening I felt elated at the prospect of being able to shoot again in a much nearer future. Earlier today, 3 ½ days after the incident, The target goal of $1000 had been reached. Unbelievable! Thanks to the wonderful community of DA it looks like I’ll be back in no time.

In closing, I just want to say that the community of Deviant Art is filled with the most compassionate, caring & supportive people that I had the pleasure to “meet”. For that I thank each and every one of you. I am proud to be a part of DA & this experience will remain with me for the rest of my life.

The following is a list of very special deviants that took the time to spread the word and showed their support in many ways , please pay them a visit and let them know how wonderful they are!
















(If I left anyone out, please excuse me I am having some trouble figuring out who some of the deviants were from there e-mail address. Please send me a note so i can add you to the list.)


Also Frank Maro & Anthony Quatroni from yourbrainiacs.com [link] for a very generous donation!!!

A big thank you also goes out to everyone that took the time to stop in and greet me with their well wishes and support in my dark hour.




Once again, thank you all so much!!! You have made me extremely happy.