Camera Hungry

I'm camera hungry like newlyweds get baby hungry.

I've been without a camera for nearly two months now. My wonderful Nikon D3000....

Please note that some of these photos were taken with my phone.

....died whilst taking these photos of the Niagara falls....

Like this one...my phone is awesome :)

You see, it got a little bit wetter than I expected...

At the crow's nest at the base of the falls... My sister and her friend are standing there in front as we get pummeled by water.

...and despite by creative attempts to protect it...

I got soaked, but I tied my poncho around me, keeping my purse dry and I put my camera in the poncho hood...it still didn't work. And please, excuse my ugliness in this picture... I'm not very photogenic.

...it stopped working shortly after we left. :(

I tried to fix it! I put it in a huge thing of rice for a few days, as well as the lens I had been using, and while my lens was pretty lucky, and it still functioned, the camera did not.

Note: funny thing about the lens... it was already acting a little funky because I got sand in it, so the auto-focus was making weird screechy noises, but I usually just use manual, so I didn't do anything about it. But when I put it in the rice, it got rice inside! BUT STILL WORKED OKAY! It's the Nokia (indestructible cell phone) of lenses!

So I took it to my beloved B&H and managed to sell it as well as two lenses, one of which had rice in it (55-200mm f/4-5.6), and the other (50mm f/1.8) because I got a newer (and better!) one for christmas (50mm f/1.4!) and I have like two of the exact same lens for my film cameras.

I was surprised they paid me for it, since the camera didn't work and one of the lenses had rice in it (so maybe I didn't mention that... but hey, it still worked ok!)

So for what originally cost a little less than $1000 I sold for $165...but hey, that's pretty good considering the circumstances, there was no way I would get that much if I tried to sell it online. So thank you B&H for accepting broken cameras for parts! WHOOT!

So here comes the actual reason for this post.

For the last two years of high school, I was on the yearbook photography staff... and was even photography editor! And my yearbook advisor has a phenomenal set of camera equipment to use for yearbook. (A Nikon D700, D300s, D300, two D7000's and a TON of great lenses)

So naturally, I borrowed stuff all of the time. My personal favorites became the D7000, the 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens and the 50mm f/1.4 lens. (I mean I liked the bigger cameras, don't get me wrong...but he wouldn't lend me the D700 to take out of school, and I liked the D7000 waayyy better than the D300's.)

I also loved to pull out his fish-eye every once and a while, and totally fell in love with his 14-24mm wide-angle (a $2000 dollar lens!).

But I quickly realized that I wouldn't have access to this equipment when I graduated, and decided that when I did go to college I'd need an upgrade anyway (BFA Photography program... I needed something a little more than a entry level DSLR you see.)

So I set my sights on these babies...

The Nikon D7000, the 18-200mm and 50mm f/1.4 lens, because that's what I got really comfortable with at school, what I used the most, and what I really loved. I had no concerns about wether I would like it or not, because I already had two years of experience using it! SO AWESOME!

I was fortunate to have AMAZING PARENTS, and my clever mother hacked (yes, not kidding, hacked... to certain people, my usernames and passwords are VERY easy to guess... so my mother and best friend will never have any issues logging into whatever I have and looking at it, because they know exactly what I would use for a username or password...and no, they aren't all the same, they're just that good.) into my B&H account and picked out one of the lenses on my wishlist to give me for christmas. So I already have the 50mm f/1.4, and it's AMAZING!!! :D

Mother, if you read this... have I remembered to say thank you for that this month? If not, THANK YOU!

I'm not being rather straightforward...I hope you don't mind...but I like to tell the WHOLE story (or most of it... just be glad I didn't start with my D40...wow! it's a doozy!)

So after drooling over this equipment for a year, and borrowing it nearly every other weekend from yearbook, I finally graduated, and knew that FINALLY, I would get my own!

Now here's the catch. I guess you could say that I'm an expensive child. Nah, there's no guessing, I'm an EXPENSIVE child. So between my drooling over this nearly $2000 worth of equipment and a nearly $2000 laptop (which I now have... her name is Athena, and we're best friends), plus all of the expensiveness of the beginning of college, my parents were not promising me anything any time soon. Other than that they would work at it, and eventually it would come... I would just need to be patient, helpful, and budget, budget, budget.

Except I'm not so good with the patient part. Or the budget. Bleh.

But thanks to BYU being ridiculously inexpensive, and the amazingness of student loans, we got the laptop, and we're just waiting to get the camera stuff when the excess loan stuff comes to us.

This is where I get sad... thanks to BYU financial services mix up, they decided to send the check for my mother to her old PO Box from when she was here at BYU nearly 26 YEARS AGO! WHAT?!?!?!

Thankfully I caught it in time, and went to the post office, where they said they were going to send it back because the PO Box didn't exist any more (no duh!). Instead they gave it to me, and since I had to send some other stuff home too, I sent it in a package to my parents a couple of weeks ago.

It still hasn't shown up. Gulp.

So now I have no one to blame for but myself. :( I sent it in a USPS flat rate box, and I'm warning you now, if you need tracking, NEVER SEND IT THAT WAY! Because flat rate boxes don't have tracking! UGH! Also, I sent it to my home address, instead of the PO Box our family has at the UPS store up the street. Had I sent it there, someone would have collected it for us, and we wouldn't have to worry about wether the delivery person tried to deliver, and was just stupid and never left us a note, or if it got lost somewhere along the way. 

So now I must wait. I must wait and try not to explode because I just want to take pictures. 

So if you stuck with me throughout the entirety of this post, I congratulate you, you probably think I'm a total spoiled brat right now...and I'm inclined to agree with you. It helps when I remember that I'm so so so so so fortunate to have what I do have, and that there are millions of people out there that would love to get to live the life I have. Because I really do live such a privileged life, so I count my blessings and remember that what I want is not anywhere as important as what I need.

My parents told me often that they would try to pay for these things that I wanted so desperately, and they knew that if I were to try and save up, it would take much longer and make me extremely frustrated (and trust me, that's what I tried to do for so long, I tried to save up...but it wasn't gonna happen within a reasonable amount of time). But while they wanted to help me, and to make me happy, they had to prioritize. They needed to make sure that their bills were paid, that they had money for food, clothes and everything they would need. Plus they wanted to put money forward first for my college education, for my housing, food, and clothing, because those would be the basics I needed.

But I did have good reasons for wanting these things. I didn't have a laptop, and had only been using my computer at home for homework. I would need a laptop by the time I started classes, because everything for school is online. While I wanted a rather fancy and expensive laptop for my photography, for school I only needed the basics, so my parents told me they would get me something inexpensive if they had to.

The camera and other equipment is also for good reason. Photography is not just a hobby, but a passion, an integral part of my education, and (hopefully) eventual career. I would need the camera for classes, for possible jobs and to help me grow as an independent individual living on my own for the first time.

So I don't wallow in self-pity because I don't have everything I want. I remember to be grateful for everything I have, everyday, I'm just not good at expressing it.

So here's to our blessings. To being patient, helpful, and to a good budget. I'm so blessed, and so grateful for everything I have. For my educational opportunities, for my excessive amount of stuff, and for the most amazing parents in the world, who are willing to pay for their extremely expensive child, even though they don't have to.

So remember to count your blessings, and as always, Live, Laugh, Photograph (even when you don't have a camera)