Worse than sending my camera to a concert for two days with a very expirienced photographer, though, will be lugging it along with me to Peru this summer. Expensive cameras were about the only thing they told us not to bring, and they have perfectly good reasons to advise against it. I've never been "mugged" but I don't like the sound of it. Pickpocketing sounds childish and suggests something petty and relatively harmless, but this cannot be said for mugging. I have a feeling that I will find myself walking up to the first five suspicious people I see, extending the camera bag and pleading, "Take it, take it all, but please don't mug me!" This could be embarassing, especially if they quietly told me they didn't want my camera. Then I might be offended.
I'm thinking of taking out a month-long insurance policy on it, but this will still be little consolation in the event that I am mugged. I will only get a new camera at the end, and any pictures I'd taken on the trip will still be lost, just as if I'd never been stupid enough to bring the camera with me to Lima in the first place. I wonder if muggers are a cooperative sort of people. Surely they will negotiate, although I'm not very imposing. Maybe the first day of the trip I can rope one of the few guys going on the trip into negotiating for me. But that'd be like two insurance policies, and two weeks in Peru is two weeks without a paycheck.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Camera worries
Once again my lovely camera is being taken from me for an entire weekend, going to places far more exciting than I have ever been. And though the thief promises that it will return safe and sound and quite possibly with a T-shirt from one of the concerts stuffed into the bag, I am not entirely reassured. I can't even say how much I love my camera, and if it gets broken....
But it won't. More rational at this point is the fear that it won't come back at all. Last time she needed it, it was for an actual emergency. Rachel's camera was in the shop, and she had a concert to photograph that night. I reluctantly agreed to let her use mine-- as already stated, my uses for it that weekend were nowhere near as cool or important as hers. I've often thought that I don't deserve my Canon, which has about a zillion features I'll never know how to use. Usually these insecurities are quelled by a little capitalist pep-talk: "You worked for it, you bought it. It's a free country, and you can carry around an eight-hundred dollar camera and use only the automatic setting if you want." But this time they came back with a vengeance, especially as Rachel began to ask questions about how to use it. "What settings to you keep it on?" Settings? "Um, you know, whatever. Depends on what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I left them on last time, but of course you can change them if you want."
"How do you do that?" Gulp.
"Uh, this one here does aperture, I think. Really, just whatever you feel like doing. I'll throw the manual in there too."
She took the camera from me and examined it for a second before twisting the dials and changing numbers faster than I could think. "There. That should do it."
I wasn't sure what would do it, but we were a long way from automatic.
But it won't. More rational at this point is the fear that it won't come back at all. Last time she needed it, it was for an actual emergency. Rachel's camera was in the shop, and she had a concert to photograph that night. I reluctantly agreed to let her use mine-- as already stated, my uses for it that weekend were nowhere near as cool or important as hers. I've often thought that I don't deserve my Canon, which has about a zillion features I'll never know how to use. Usually these insecurities are quelled by a little capitalist pep-talk: "You worked for it, you bought it. It's a free country, and you can carry around an eight-hundred dollar camera and use only the automatic setting if you want." But this time they came back with a vengeance, especially as Rachel began to ask questions about how to use it. "What settings to you keep it on?" Settings? "Um, you know, whatever. Depends on what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I left them on last time, but of course you can change them if you want."
"How do you do that?" Gulp.
"Uh, this one here does aperture, I think. Really, just whatever you feel like doing. I'll throw the manual in there too."
She took the camera from me and examined it for a second before twisting the dials and changing numbers faster than I could think. "There. That should do it."
I wasn't sure what would do it, but we were a long way from automatic.
AP exams are coming up ridiculously soon, although that hardly means I'm studying. History will probably be the worst, and though I've done pretty well in the class all year, it would be stupid to expect a very good score. With only a week to go, I've decided to reread in its entirety the review book I've been using the past couple trimesters instead of the actual text. (Yes, that's right. I haven't read more than six chapters in the real textbook we've been assigned). This will of course be helpful, but I'm wondering whether any of it will actually stick. My mind doesn't work well with history, last year's class on world history being a case in point. I remember how to sing the Chinese dynasty song, I remember when we did a skit about Indira Gandhi. I don't remember what actually happened in any of the dynasties, or when Indira was around. I remember the name Chandragupta, but not how he was connected to the Gupta empire or even where the Gupta empire was supposed to be. It's embarrassing.
This time around will be even more embarrassing, because all of what I'm supposed to remember took place in my own country. At the moment I can't think of any examples of things I don't remember, probably because I've forgotten them entirely. Social trends are easy enough to hold on to, but dates get me completely lost. Anything before the Progressive movement is boring beyond reason.
Basically, it could be a bad week.
This time around will be even more embarrassing, because all of what I'm supposed to remember took place in my own country. At the moment I can't think of any examples of things I don't remember, probably because I've forgotten them entirely. Social trends are easy enough to hold on to, but dates get me completely lost. Anything before the Progressive movement is boring beyond reason.
Basically, it could be a bad week.
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