Last Updated on 11/24/2016 by Chris Gampat
All images by Matthew Baum. Used with permission.
When all your photography was gear stolen along with personal belongings and years worth of photography work, you would most likely be devastated and contemplated on giving up. For Matthew Baum, he was determined to recover from his tragedy through a crowd funding campaign and continue to pursue his ambitious personal vision of creating a photography center for a local community to learn, explore, and enjoy photography.
Hailed from New York City, Matthew Baum was a photographer with a mission to start a community center providing teaching and mentorship, and having the resources to help upcoming photographers achieve their dreams and grow through photography. In order to do this, Matthew moved out to Napa Valley in late October after four years of extensive planning and saving up. He had brought everything with him in a truck: personal belongings, photography gear, computers, large format printer, cloths, guitars, some furniture, and most importantly his collection of creative work from the past 15 years. On 31st October, Matthew discovered that his truck with everything in it was stolen (an estimated of $75,000 to $100,000 loss of equipment and belongings). You may find the official news article here.
Matthew was heartbroken but he was also determined to get back out there as soon as possible and keep moving forward. Matt’s sister and best friend have started a Gofundme campaign to source funds from the crowd to help Matthew get back on his feet and continue to pursue his mission on starting the business center for photography teaching. Matthew is aiming to return to California and get the business started in February next year.
You can find out more about Matthew Baum’s story and help him at the Gofundme Campaign page here. You may also check out his street photography and triptych landscape work on his website here.