Help me retire the WordCamps camera

(Texto en español aquí)

After four wonderful years together, my Sony Alpha 7II is retiring. But before I go on with this I'd like you to read something.

I've spent more than twenty years making websites and now I work as a support technician with the amazing team at boluda.com It's a great job, it allows me to help a lot of people and I have no complaints about it.

But that's just one of my identities; my Peter Parker, my Bruce Banner, my Thomas Anderson. Outside of work I put on my mask, put on my tights and become someone capable of extraordinary feats.

I have given voice to millions of people, I have made crowded auditoriums laugh, I have captained and been a member of teams of wonderful people who freely give their time and work to others without asking for anything in return, I have sung with two thousand people from the top of an 18-meter crane and, above all, I have brought together a family of hundreds of people.

Family with whom I have worked, laughed and cried. Family that has welcomed me in their home, that has slept in mine, that has been by my side when I have lost loved ones and that has helped me to laugh at bad times, but also family with whom I have dreamed of a little better world and that has fought by my side to make knowledge a little freer.

I have family in Seville, Madrid, Chiclana, Granada, Malaga, Valencia, Barcelona, Pontevedra, Bilbao, Irun, Griñon, Torrelodones, Alcala de Henares, Las Palmas, Zaragoza... but also in Portugal, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Greece, Serbia, Ukraine, Morocco, Venezuela, Costa Rica, United States, Canada, Japan....

And when you have such a big family, the photo album is huge.

In the last year alone I've taken 8949 photos at 11 WordCamps and other WordPress related events.

If you've met me at any of them in the last few years, chances are you've seen me clutching a camera.

Some people use cameras to put distance with other people, my Sony has served me for the opposite, to get closer to thousands of people.

To give you an idea of what I mean, with this camera I have taken 53,000 photos, almost all of them at WordCamps and meetups. For four years, it has been my Robin, my Short Round, my Chewbacca.

But everything has its end and in the WordCamp Europe 2023 it started to fail and I had to rent another body in Greece. It's time to retire it and get a replacement so I can keep taking pictures.

I'm writing this sitting on a plane coming back from Athens and I've been crying my eyes out for half an hour now, remembering everything I've experienced with this camera.

I have not set up this collection because I need the money.

Fortunately I could pay out of my pocket for the new camera, just as I have paid for all the previous ones, but it would be amazing if the WordPress community would be a part of it.

I'm not buying anything fancy, just the next model Sony Alpha 7III. It's not the latest model, but it's more than enought to cover my needs (plus some extras like silent shooting)

So, if you can afford it, I would be enormously grateful if you could donate a small amount to buy the camera that will accompany me around the world for the next few years and with which I will continue to try to make the world a better place and continue to expand my family photo album