The Internet Giveth…

…and the Internet taketh away. And sometimes it is incredibly cruel when it’s the latter.

This is a photo of my friend, Cath and me taken when Amanda and I spent a couple of days in London during a layover on our way to Kenya back in 2016. Sadly, I learned of Cath’s passing today and I’m incredibly devastated because I’ve lost a dear friend and it wasn’t a terribly fun way to learn about it, either.

Cath and I met via Flickr back in 2009. Of all of the Internet presences I’ve had over the years, Flickr has lasted the longest. I haven’t even been on Facebook as long as I’ve been on Flickr. And it’s the one site that I’ve stayed consistently active on. There are many aspects of Flickr that I love but the greatest gift it has given me is a number of friendships with people all over the globe.

As with a lot of my Flickr friendships, Cath and I crossed paths simply enough. I had been posting a lot of work taken with my Tamron SP 180mm f2.5 LD IF. Tamron made 3000 of these to celebrate their 35th anniversary, so it’s not a very common lens. Cath saw me posting about it and sent me a message inquiring about my thoughts on it since she had an opportunity to pick one up. From there we started chatting about cameras and lenses often. In Cath, I had found a kindred spirit who loved to collect and use a variety of gear as much (or possibly even more than!) I did. While we’d discuss just about anything and everything over the years of our friendship, we never stopped talking about cameras and lenses. My last conversation with her revolved around the gear she would be taking on a trip.

So I’m eternally grateful to the Internet for the gift of our friendship. I doubt there’s any chance that we would have crossed paths had it not been for our common photographic interests and a chance Flickr message about a rare lens.

Sadly, the internet was more than cruel today, though.

I had not heard from Cath for a few weeks. I had tried messaging her on various platforms. Initially, the lack of communication wasn’t completely surprising or worrying. Cath had a limited data plan on her phone so she often waited until getting free WiFi at a campground or a coffee shop. However, as time went on and I didn’t hear from her via any of the methods I had tried, I started getting worried. I didn’t have any contacts in the UK that I could talk to so I tried doing a search for her name in the town she lived in. That brought up a memorial site that listed a service for someone with her name. By this time I was starting to freak out a little bit, so I contacted Amanda and talked to her about it. Amanda did a search and came across an obituary with Cath’s picture.

The simultaneous hit of losing Cath without any chance to say goodbye and learning about her death 3 weeks after the fact in a short obituary found via a websearch is hitting me hard. I’m really not sure that I can fully voice the feelings I’m having at the moment. I can’t believe that this person I’ve shared so many conversations with is just gone and that I learned about it in such an impersonal way. It’s not right.

I’m doing my best to look at the bright side. I have made many, many internet friends from all over the country and all over the globe. There are a great number of them that I’ve never had the opportunity to meet. I did have that opportunity with Cath. Meeting her was actually a happy bit of serendipity. Amanda and I were initially looking at traveling to Nairobi via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. We later switched to British Airways. Once I let Cath know, she was able to arrange her schedule so that she could come into London and meet us. Knowing my love of trains, she suggested that we meet at St. Pancras, which she called the “Cathedral of Railway Stations.” Was she ever right about that. She knew me well.

Still, I can’t believe that I’ll never get to hear how photographing Ailsa Craig with the Zuikos that she brought along went. I’m at least glad that she had the opportunity to see Ailsa Craig one more time. Cath took innumerable fine photographs, but some of her best were always of Ailsa Craig. (Hoping that she wouldn’t mind, I’ll share some of those as well as some of her other amazing work at the end of this post).

Cath, if the Afterlife has Internet service, I hope you have a chance to read this and know how much I value our friendship. You certainly brought me a lot of joy over the years. And despite the distance between us, you were a pillar of strength during some very rough times in my life. You likewise shared in the happiest moments, too. And meeting you and spending a day wandering around London with you and Amanda was a highlight of that trip and  something I’ll never forget. I will miss chatting photography with you. I hope someday I can attend a “boot sale” and score an amazingly low priced Zeiss 135mm like you did. And I’ll think of you every time I use my Tamron 180mm or use the NatGeo camera bag you so kindly gave me. 

Thank you for all of the memories. I will miss you very, very much. I hope Minnie was waiting for you on the other side and I hope that someday we can wander around and chat photography gear again. Take care, my friend.

The following are some of my favorite pictures that Cath posted of Ailsa Craig:

And this is a small sample of the rest of her imaginative, beautiful photography. Please stop by her Flickr stream here and see much more!