Don't be like Mike (It's Me... I'm Mike) ...

With the debut of Adele’s new album in a little under three weeks, I’m reminded of an incident that happened to me about 5 years ago. This story hasn’t aged well and makes me upset but is definitely a cautionary tale about keeping your gear secure.

Picture it… Cleveland, 2016. My best friends, my mom and I are ready for the trip of a lifetime. We’re going to go see Adele, in London, at Wembley Stadium. We’ve got everything packed including my Sony Cybershot camera AND my shiny new Sony a6000 mirrorless APS-C and both the telephoto and power zoom lenses. I even bought a brand new camera bag for the occasion. Ironically enough, my friend Kate had wound up buying the same camera in a different color. I was PUMPED and ready to go!

The first few days in London were amazing. While it wasn’t my first trip to this world class city, I was enjoying the anticipation of seeing Adele in concert and capturing all of my great photos with my new camera and uploading them to Flickr every night (Flickr? What’s that!? Eh?). Then crap hit the fan… Queen Adele lost her voice and canceled our show. We were ALL devastated. We had flown all the way to see this lady in concert and she cancelled her show!

While we were hurt and devastated behind the cancellation of the show, we were DETERMINED that we were going to have a great time. Remember how I bought all of that new gear for the trip? I forgot to check to make sure the camera strap was comfortable for me. The kit strap was digging into my skin and it really kind of hurt. While we were in the back of an Uber on our way back to the AirBNB from dinner. I set the camera down.... and then left it in the back of the Uber. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes later I realized my mistake and by this point, it was too late. The camera was gone. Forever. Pictures of my mom in front of Buckingham Palace? Gone. The only pictures I have from that trip are the ones taken on my phone and the ones that were uploaded to Flickr but of course those are all just JPEG and not as easy to edit as the RAW images on the card in the camera. And to make matters worse? Sony camera EXIF data doesn’t include the camera serial number so it’s impossible to track. So we’ll just have to take the Uber driver’s word for it that he didn’t find the camera once I reported it missing.

We planned to go back  to the UK and reshoot some of the pics before my mom passed but didn’t make it. So this is my cautionary tale. Make sure you have gear that works for you, make sure that camera strap is comfortable and above all else… KNOW where your gear is at all times. 

Ultimately I replaced the body and currently have a blue Peak Design strap on my camera that I absolutely love. I have moved on from this incident but every once in a while I get pretty upset about it but one thing is for certain – that mistake will never be made again

Thanks for reading,

The Soaring Phoenix