Thanks for helping J and M!

Hello, friends.

Here are the cliff notes:
Mariah and I (Justin) depend on our skills as photographers to live. We went to Africa for 2 weeks to photograph a children's camp in a small village called Pokot in Kapenguria, Kenya. We were robbed of over $12,000 worth of equipment. We would really appreciate your help so we can do our jobs again. We love you. Thank you.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:
- Donate.

- Get us in touch with people who need photography done for them. Headshots and weddings are our specialty, but we also do family portraits, events (corporate or otherwise), glamour, etc.
You can send people to our sites to see our work. Our main website is stlmo.photography. The headshot specific link is www.headshotstl.com.

- Let us know if you know anyone who is selling Nikon lenses for FX cameras.

-If you are an active social networker or blogger and you feel like sharing our story, please do so freely! You can link to j.mp/kenyahelpus  (I know... bad puns. I'm full of them.)

Below are a couple of videos from the trip:

Photo Slideshow of the Camp and Safari

Video of the Camp


Now for the 1500 word version:
Many of you know Mariah and me. Some of you may have heard about our GoFundMe campaign through a friend or family member. Regardless of how you got here, we just want to say thank you for even taking the time to hear our story. Fair warning, I am a professional story teller, so this shan't be short. When you're through my diatribe, if you feel moved to help us out monetarily, that'd be amazing. If you cannot, you're still amazing... if you would please pass our story along, we'd appreciate that a ton as well.

Those of you that know me know I'm summed up well by my Instagram handle. @photosandmusic. Those two things dominate my life. You may also know that I've been self-employed since 2008 as a photographer. And it's practically a cliche that more often than not, being an artist is not the most lucrative of professions, but it's also unavoidable for some. It's the most beautiful curse you can be afflicted by.

In 2007, after spending about 6 months studying photography in Rome, I returned to the USA. After making it across an ocean, on the jetway to my plane from Chicago to St. Louis, a baggage handler stole my bag. It contained my computer, harddrive full of original music and a book I'd been writing, 4000+ photography negatives, a camera, a bunch of lenses, and a few other items.  Half a year of photography throughout Europe... gone. And just an hour from home. 

I spent the next few months severely depressed. The start of 2008 was a rough one. Haha! Nevertheless, I decided I had to make a decision to either take that as some kind of cosmic sign to abandon the path of photography, or dust myself off and give it another go. After much deliberation, I opted for the latter. I started Justin M Photo later that year, and that has been my primary source of income since. 3 years ago, I asked Mariah to join my team (of 1 at the time), and she jumped in headlong. I had ulterior motives.

I know you already know where this is going... but I'll build the suspense just a little more in the hopes that when I reach the punchline, it might just hit you in the gut like it did to us.

Mariah and I rely on our ability to document and enhance others' lives by creating artwork that reflects their personalities, encapsulates their memories, and recreates the events of some of their most momentous occasions. We create art out of the mundane and the exceptional, and we are legitimately passionate about what we do. We think about photography and work on photography every single day. Our photography business accounts for about 90% of our income.

Imagine, if you will, taking every one of your most valuable possessions and all the tools you use to make a living... to pay your bills... to feed yourself... to keep the lights on... imagine taking all of those things and putting them into a bag that you must carry around. We do that several times a week.

I was put into a position years ago where I had to briefly relinquish my possession of that bag. It did not end well, as you know. Well, history has a way of repeating itself, doesn't it?

This year, less than a month ago, Mariah and I accompanied my father (a mission pastor in St. Louis) and a group of missionaries to Kapenguria, Kenya in order to help out with a camp. Our primary purpose was to document the events of that camp, the team, the kids, the work, the play, etc. 1 week into the trip, that bag I was talking about... you know... with Mariah's and my life in it? Yep. It was stolen. I didn't even have to hand it to anyone to steal this time either! It was in a locked hotel room about 50 yards away from where we were sitting down eating dinner.

The short version of the actual theft is this: Our group was noticeable for a handful of reasons. I was constantly pointing expensive things at people. We believe our group was cased by a couple in Kitale, and they followed us to Le Voyage, the hotel we stayed at just outside of town. They learned our schedules, they learned which rooms were ours, and which were obscured by darkness and other buildings, they learned where the most expensive stuff was, and at some point in the past, they learned how to pick locks. At about 6:45pm Kenyan time, while we were eating dinner, the woman of the couple wandered around outside the dining hall on her cellphone while we ate. The man picked into three rooms and made off like a bandit... literally. They got a bunch of stuff from 6 members of our team. Kindles, iPads, phones, computers, cameras, and of course... the bag.

I know it may sound crazy that we could even fit $10,000 worth of stuff in one bag... unless you're a photographer or a musician or anyone else who uses really expensive tools. Then I probably don't have to explain it. Haha! But I will:

2 cameras - - - - - - - - - - -  $5,500
3 lenses - - - - - - - - - - - - - $3,300
18 memory cards - - - - -  $640
2 straps - - - - - - - - - - - - - $100 
4 batteries - - - - - - - - - - -$120
1 tripod - - - - - - - - - - - - - $80
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $9,740 total.

Add to that our phones, iPads, Kindles, sunglasses, chargers, cash (it was our travel fund that we've been saving for months, too) and everything else they made off with (they even took my driver's license) and the total was over $12,000 just of Mariah's and my stuff. The rest of the team lost computers, cameras, phones, cash... you hate to say it, but in a twisted way, these guys were good. Close to $20K worth of stuff from locked rooms with the victims less than a football field's distance away in under half an hour... impressive.

What they did not get: Our photos on Mariah's computer... which was in one of the well-lit rooms closest to our dining room. It would have been a different story if they had. I'd be in a jail in Kenya.

So, we need your help. As a rule, Mariah and I always do whatever we can to help others. In fact, it's like... a Golden Rule! :) We try not to ask for much, because we don't need much. We have our health, we've got a couple of cats, we've got a whole lot of love, and we have open hearts. But we have to ask for your help this time. It was too big of a hit for us to handle alone.

If it's in your heart and in your budget to help us get back up and running, it would mean the world to us. Your donations mean we can continue to work and provide for our tiny weird family of four and we can do the only thing we know how and be artists... but skip past the "starving" part. We've already done that. It's way overrated.

- - - Anyone who donates anything is free to come by our place anytime. We'll cook you dinner and take some portraits of you. 

- - - I can also write you a haiku, send you a digital photograph of my cats, teach you to throat-sing, show you how to hang a hammock properly, or send you an amazing strawberry-banana-bread recipe. 

As far as "real" rewards, we can only give our hearts and eternal gratitude. Everything else was in that bag! Haha. 

Thank you guys again, it means the world to us. And... if you read down this far, pat yourself on the back. You're dedicated.

We love you all,

Justin & Mariah