An unexpected turn of events.

My camera broke the day that we got back from California. It was horrible. The bathroom stalls at airports are simply not large enough to accommodate someone with two carry-on pieces. And I HAVE to say, the bag hooks SHOULD BE LONGER. I am doing my best to not dwell on fault or blame about this situation, because that does no good. However, if I was going to be angry about this, I'd be angry about that damn short hook on the bathroom door stall.

So. Camera bag goes on hook. I start turning to use the toilet. Camera bag slips and turns mid slip so that the top of the bag (oh so coincidentally where the camera rests) is pointing toward the ground. Camera bag completely slips off of hook. Bag crashes to the ground. Irritated groan from me. However, I didn't think any damage had been done. I didn't see my camera the rest of the day, amidst unpacking I didn't give it a second though. I had already posted my 365 for that day too.

Let's cut to the following day. Time to prepare my camera for some photographs. After a few unfortunate days in the past where I left without a memory card or a battery, I always check that my camera is loaded with both and is working. Commence camera check list!

Uh oh.

If I had been in my right mind, I might have taken a photo of what my camera looked like, but I was beyond distraught.

Never again will I travel with a lens attached to my camera body. This is something that I've heard before, but never applied to myself. Smart, right?

Lens is half off the body. "Oh my God, oh my God". Uggghhhh. Crap crap crap. I take the lens off the camera, carefully, and a tiny spring and two small metal pieces pop off of the metal ring on the front of the camera body.

Woo. Commence uncontrollable sobbing.

Jake went straight to work researching camera repair shops in the area. Unfortunately, there aren't any. The closest places are in Seattle, which we kind of figured.

Cut to the next day! We headed off to Seattle and found our destination in Ballard at a place called Camera Techs. My worst fears were confirmed when the kind man behind the counter inspected my camera and told me that the entire mirror box needed to be replaced because the impact ripped the metal threading from the plastic body. Excellent.

I don't know yet when I'll have my camera back or how much it'll cost. I know it'll be at least $300.

This was a rather devastating turn of events. I felt oddly empty and alone when I looked at my broken camera moments after the metal pieces popped out. Even though I use my camera everyday and photography is my passion and it's what I want to do with my life and what I'm going to school for, it's like I didn't realize how much I loved and depended on my camera. I miss it.

For now I'm using my mom's point and shoot. I was really bothered by this at first, because the camera is so simple. I miss the control I have over photos. However, perhaps this is happening at a good time. The week or two before spring break, my boss at work was talking to me a lot about being more creative with my work. Mostly, letting go of the technical aspect and getting to the core of photography and composition. He kept telling me I should use my Holga, but that thing makes me so angry. This simple point and shoot seems like the perfect alternative. I have almost no control, so I have to rely entirely on content and composition.

Terrible. Just terrible. This is a bad photo in many ways. I was still really disgruntled about using the "simple" camera, so I just didn't try hard.

The following day is when I had my realization that this was actually a fantastic opportunity in disguise (minus the money necessary to repair my slr). My perfect time to be forced to focus on composition and content.

This is Jake's book. He was reading while we were on the ferry on our way to Ballard to drop off my camera for repair. Looking at it now, the horizon line is a little too close to center frame. Other than that, I really like this one.

My friends' house has some beautiful purple flowers growing along their driveway. I took a whole bunch of photos, all the while thinking hard about composition and eye flow. This one ended up being my favorite. I think the twig helps, it points straight to the flower.

I believe that this one is very compositionally interesting! The make-up display was eye-catching and pretty, both in arrangement and in color scheme. The vanishing/diminishing viewpoint of the eyeshadow containers tells the viewer that the make-up counter just keeps going and going.

Here is last night's photo. I worked hard on this one. Jake gave me the idea after I told him that my word of the day was, "neither".

I experimented with different placements to try to direct the viewers eye. Was it effective? I think it was. I moved the pepper shaker to the left because I felt it created more of an arrow to the fork, which points directly to the seasoning. With the salt on the left it blended too much with the plate and napkin and lead (led?) the eye right out of the frame.

I haven't taken my photo of the day yet. I'm not sure what it'll be just yet, but you can bet I'm going to be focusing hard on content and composition.

-MJ