I ran over my camera case. Twice, actually. In my car. First, I backed over it. Thinking it was the curb I had backed over, I went forward and ran over it again. I won't go into the details, but it was a comedy of errors, and I had to move my car real fast, and was forced to back up real quickly bla bla bla. It was the most boneheaded thing I've ever done, that's for sure.

Inside the bag was my new Nikon D200 body and all four of my lenses. Somehow, the D200 survived and seems to work fine (Nikon will be getting a letter of appreciation). But all four of my lenses are trashed, so I'm basically crippled as a photographer. And I'm not making a bunch of money right now.

But here's the thing: it's not that big of a deal. I guess all of that internal work I've been doing these past few years has really paid off. Those lenses are just things, and they've traveled with me for five years and have focused in on thousands of amazing landscapes. I used the shit out of them. My friend Jeremy pulled up right after the fiasco happened. I was still in a state of shock, but was already processing. He said to me, "Jay, you just destroyed your lifeblood." And I looked at him and said, "No I didn't. My lifeblood runs inside of me. It is my heart and soul and eyes that takes these pictures." It was amazing to hear those words come out of my mouth. I will rebuild. I will work harder to sell my work now, and I will get even better glass. Which I've needed to do anyway. So it's all good. It's a pain in the ass, that's for sure. And I need to figure out something by Burning Man in six weeks, because that is my favorite place to photograph. And I will be there with a working outfit to capture the beauty. I need everywhere from 18 mm to at least 300 mm to capture it the Jay Newman way. I'll figure it out.

Just wanted to share that with you all. We are artists. And it is not the material objects that we "own" that makes that art. It is us.