Photographer’s equipment and original works stolen from North Rocks

Up and coming photographer Mitch Cox has lost his livelihood at the hands of thieves who raided his van in North Rocks last night

Up and coming photographer Mitch Cox has lost his livelihood at the hands of thieves who raided his van in North Rocks last night.

The 22-year-old parked his campervan outside his parent’s home in Ebony Ave just after 9.30pm on Thursday to catch a bite to eat and sleep.

The theft was discovered at 7.30am today. Thieves had cut open a hole into a side window, opened the locked van and taken camera gear, a drone and numerous other items.

A laptop computer, two hard drives containing the originals of thousands of images were also taken along with a Cannon 6D camera and several lenses, his tripod and a fridge.

“It’s about $17,000-worth of items,” he told the Times. “The worst thing is losing the hard drives. They had all my original copies on the. I do have a lot on Instagram and DropBox but I haven’t backed them up for about six months.”

He has sold some images to tourism companies but can no longer fill orders because his high res images are on the hard drives.

One of the images by Mitch. Cox. which had been ordered by a Queensland tourism company.

“We had been on the Northern Beaches taking photographs and had got back home at about 9.30pm. We got home late and I left everything in the van and locked it.

“I thought as it was so late I wouldn’t worry about it.”

He has been a keen photographer since the age of 12 and has been working part time at Hardware and General since he was 14 to buy the camera equipment he needed.

As well as freelance photography he also does freelance design work.

The drone alone cost him more than $2000 only two months old and the laptop was around $2500.

His girlfriend Cleo Codrington has started a Go Fund Me campaign called Keep Mitch Taking Photos https://www.gofundme.com/szshvufk

Police are investigating. Anyone who saw anything suspicious or who may have information about the whereabouts of the items should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.