Wake Up Call

Courtney and I both are interested in photography and recently decided to buy a good camera together. We have a Canon Rebel film camera, but have been wanting to go into digital (and save a ton of money by not developing ruined shots!). We took several weeks to research cameras, interview friends who are photographers and read reviews on line in order to make a good decision based our budget, our experience (lack of) and our goals of learning photography.

A couple of weeks ago, we made the plunge to buy a Nikon Digital Camera - not a super, high- end one, but a very good one that would suit our needs and modest ambitions of becoming better photographers. It was a financial stretch, but we decided to invest in something that we'd own for a long time and be able to "grow into."

We had the camera for about three weeks when last Tuesday night, someone stole our camera, checkbook, cellphone and business credit card out of Courtney's car. Checking accounts and credit cards can be canceled, and cell phones can be easily replaced, but it was hard to lose the camera. We filed a police report and the officer retrieved a flashlight that was left by the thief. Hopefully, fingerprints will lead to his arrest...but we'll never see that camera again.

After our initial shock and anger and disappointment at the financial loss, we realized that we've been slacking off in our diligence regarding our personal safety and our property. We've been leaving our cars unlocked, sometimes leaving windows and doors to our home open, going away and not bolting our front door... suddenly the loss of the camera was put into perspective. This could have been so much worse! We are grateful that no one was hurt and that it was a theft from one of our cars and not in our home.