Update:

We took a look into the issue with this account. It appears your “steve.portigal” account was deleted by someone who had access to your Yahoo! ID and password. Investigating, we think there is a possibility your account was phished.

In short, in most cases when someone’s account has been phished, a link to a fake Flickr page was left on a photo. Often it is a link that was left for a bogus award. These are usually fake login pages that send the ID and password to the person who has posted this fake page. In a small number of cases, invasive software has been installed that logs keystrokes on the Windows operating system. We have no way to know how you were affected, we do want to make this clear.

Unfortunately the content from the account cannot be restored. When accounts are deleted by someone who has access to the ID and password, we presume it to be the person who created that ID and is acting upon their wishes and then the data is deleted. We can restore the account itself which will restore it’s pro status.

We are definitely sorry this has happened. We know this is disruptive to your experience on Flickr and work you have created is lost. We don’t like seeing this affect our community.