Friday, November 18, 2011

Banarama Stolen

I got my bag from China Airlines an hour ago, it was about 1/3 the weight it was when I put it in check in luggage back in Edmonton. The bag had been gutted with most of the items stolen.

I lost the Banarama valued at over $1000, a flash battery with a value of maybe $300 and various charger cords maybe $50. I also lost some other things but cannot remember what they are just now, its all to depressing to think about.

I could care less about the monetary value of the items but not having the camera is going to mean I cannot make some good possibly great and maybe even important photographs. I feel I am letting the people I wanted to photograph down, this just plain sucks. I placed another order for the same Banarama camera (will call it Banarama 2) with Dean Jones (Razzle camera maker) in Australia will have at least a 2 year wait to get Banarama 2 made.
Here is a photo of the Banarama from Deans website.




http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~razzle/


I feel like I let people down, the people I wanted to photograph with the Banarama deserve to have their stories told, I so wanted to tell those stories.

This f-cking sucks, it feels terrible to lose the opportunity to make photographs with the Banarama (even put a beautiful new strap on it before leaving Edmonton, hope the thief enjoys the new strap!).

I called China Airlines to inform them of the theft, they gave me some forms to fill out. To China Airlines its a forms thing, to the person who stole the camera its a money thing but to me its lost photos that I will never be able to make again, lost moments in time that will never captured, they're lost forever. To me this is about not telling the stories of the people I was going to photograph. I should have put the bag in the carry on bags, its my fault I failed to live up to my responsibility. With a bit of extra effort I could have carried the camera, but I was foolish I was worried about the weight, got lazy and put it in the check in bag. I f-cked up and cannot make those photographs now, I cannot tell those peoples stories.

I will try to regroup and do the best photos I can with the tools I have.

Stop whining Gerry, get off your ass and make some meaningful photographs, tell some stories with the tools you have.

Going back to the room to try to sleep and get ready for tomorrow, going to f-cking work my ass off to forget this ugliness. I have great tools, need to work them and tell the stories that need to be told.

Need to get my head around this and not let this trip be a failure, need to create and let this go. Got to tell the stories of the people that allow me to photograph them.