My Camera Gear Was Stolen. What now?

Today, Saturday September 3rd, at around 2:45pm, my camera was stolen.  I was going into the store to purchase some balloons, in a part of LA I will not disclose, spent no more than 5 minutes inside the store, and I came back with a shattered passenger side window and two missing cameras and two VERY expensive lenses.  When I happened upon my shattered window and subsequent missing equipment, what was going to be a lovely day shooting on my ongoing Inflated series of photos, turned out to be one of my most heartbreaking moments in life.  As someone who has been shooting photography for nearly have of my life, it shouldn't come as a surprise that my passion is photography.  I have shot film for most of it and just recently switched to digital to help streamline my workflow for professional work.  So, with my missing digital equipment, my professional career has come to an abrupt stop.  Even though I prefer film over digital, a lost camera is a lost camera.  It was an extension of me and as corny or cliche as it may sound, a little piece of me is gone as well.  I had imagined myself growing with that camera through the coming years.  That probably won't happen anymore.

So, what now?  Well, I can't accept much paying jobs or work on any of my creative projects until I get a replacement camera and I'm not sure when I'll buy another DSLR so as far as that is concerned, that aspect of my life is up in the air.  I filed a police report for safe measure but it probably wouldn't do as much good as I had hoped for since my insurance company won't cover stolen "personal" items (I had always thought full coverage on an automobile insurance policy included theft but apparently it doesn't).  Oh, I failed to mention that the lenses that were lost were rented and not theft is not covered by their insurance either so that is money out of my pocket...

Fairly recently, a Getty Images photographer had his gear stolen in Hollywood which was valued at an estimated $9000.  A year followed where, on a whim, he decided to use a search website and entered his serial number and, by luck or by chance, happened to find his stolen gear and was able to recover it.  This gives me hope.  I know exactly what was stolen so I'll be searching the usual suspect websites, craigslist and ebay, and look for new listings of what was stolen.  I will continue to do this until the day I find my gear or something serious happens to me.  I will not stop.  I will use the two websites (http://www.gadgettrak.com/camerasearch/index.php http://www.stolencamerafinder.com/) that offer a service to search serial numbers to help my cause as well.  I may not find my gear when all is said and done and I'm not sure if I'm content with that notion at this moment or not.  Maybe just fooling myself.  I'm the last person to wish any form of negativity on or towards anyone, even to people that hate me or hold me in a negative light. But whoever it was that broke into my car, stole my gear, my passion and my livelihood, I want that person caught.  I want to see that day.

My photography will still continue.  Just won't be as steady as before.  Wish me luck.

-Q

Event Shooting: Bar One's Beer & Wine Garden Festival

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Last Saturday, I was shooting Bar One's Beer & Wine Garden Festival. Bar One happens to be my watering hole and when I learned about their upcoming event, I jumped at the opportunity and asked if they would like my services for their event. This isn't my first time doing event shooting so I knew what the score was. Shoot early, stay late.

I arrived around 11am, about an hour before the event was scheduled to start, to shoot the prep work and to set up an improvised photobooth. Things didn't really get happening until 1pm and when things got going, I got to working. By the end of the event, which ended at 9pm, I was already worn out but I decided to be a trooper and stay a bit to imbibe with the fine patrons of this fine establishment. As fun as that was, along with the day and the experience, I probably shouldn't have stayed after as long as I did (which ended up being 1am) because the very next day, all I did was sleep.








These are just some photos that I randomly picked out of the bunch and if you'd like to see the entire set, they're all uploaded to my facebook fan page and you can find that by clicking on that little facebook banner to the right.

Cutting Room Floor: John Insignificant

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It's been long overdue. I've finally finished working on this set of images for sometime now and I'm glad I'm able to post up an image even though this image didn't really make the cut. There were a couple of things about this image that didn't satisfy the image I had in mind before shooting this photo for my John Insignificant series. One thing I did like about this photo is the positioning of the models. What I didn't dig was that I could've used more lighting in this photo. I was looking for a final image that consisted of deep contrast and rich shadows. I got a bit of both with respect to the male model (or Mr. Insignificant if you will) but the woman didn't get either. I had a strobe positioned straight left of her but I didn't have the setting on the strobe very high. Maybe I'll have another go at something like this in the future and either position the strobe more right of her and set the setting a little bit higher. There's also the issue of the Guinness bottle on the little table. I did not intend to have that there. That was just a little something something we all had while during the shoot. I do like the idea of being some sort of alcohol being in the image but the beer bottle is just too small and doesn't fit in. Maybe something bigger, like say a bottle of some type of liquor such as whiskey or scotch would've been better. Something larger would've been great for scale.

The final image that made the cut can be seen in my Facebook fan page which you could find by clicking on the FB link to the right of this blog.