We all make decisions in life and have to live with the consequences. If we choose to act in a contradiction to our morals our mind will constantly remind you of that fact and drive us insane with guilt. Living with a clear conscious is one of my beliefs that help me through life, so when I stupidly but not unconsciously took the risk by getting too close to a laser show while in Florence, Italy I paid that price. My Olympus OMD EM5 had it's sensor ruined with a vertical and horizontal line of burnt pixels. I did have a backup camera, an old Nikon D90 but it wasn't fitting in with the care free nature of our 3 month holiday routine. It was fine during the day but required a tripod at night to get a decent image. Something I could not see myself carrying around for the next 2 months of our journey. It would be to cumbersome and not the nature of this trip. Holiday first, photography second. Having said that I did use a tripod 5 times during this journey. Once in Dubai at the Abu Dhabi Grand Mosque, at the Padirac Caves in the south of France, at Mont Saint Michel on the west coast of France and to shoot a windmill we stumbled upon while driving to Mont Saint Michel. The rest were in the comfort of handheld shooting, even at night thanks to the excellent 5 axis image stabilisation of the OMD EM5 and the 12mm f2 Olympus lens.
Then 2 days latter Karma gave me a break while in Venice. While completely lost in the interconnecting lane ways in the heart of the island we found probably the only camera store on the island and guess what was in the window? The Olympus OMD EM1. :)))) It had only arrived that morning. We walked out to the store empty handed apart from the SD memory card for Dianne as she was going through them like a hot knife through butter. The next day during a thunderstorm with lightning cracking which seem amplified echoing off every inch of concret and the rain pelting down causing great difficulty for pedestrians holding umbrellas to pass each other in these confined thorough fairs, I made the 20 minute walk at a brisk pace back to the store and purchased the EM1 at a credit card bleeding price. For that price back home I could have almost bought the new Sony A7r.
Now jump forward 2 months. We have driven from Venice to Switzerland, around the south and west coast of France, around the UK ending up at our last destination, visiting a relative we didn't knew existed until recently before flying to Amsterdam. It was here I thought Karma had kicked me in the butt again. Our newly discovered relative reverses their car into our hire car. DOAH!!!! Scratched and slightly dented the bumper on our car was noticeably damaged. Guess who didn't take up the extra cost of car insurance at the car rental....... :( I would be up for a excess payment of 1,500 British Pounds. Close to $3,000 Aussie dollars. Oh I hear you say, just ask your relative to pay for the damaged cause. Nope. I couldn't do that. You see this relative is fighting with Asbestosis and only working part time. I did have travel insurance which should cover most of this, I hope. I had read forums about how car rental companies looked for every cent they could force out of you with extra costs. It wasn't looking good. Now this is where the power of good intentions affects Karma. When I returned the car back I pointed out the damage before they spotted it saying it was damaged while it was parked and not attended. A slight variation of the truth to which I would not benefit from other than keeping our relative out of this mess. I would take this bullet for them so to speak. To my surprise the attended says to me, "Don't worry, we'll put this down as normal wear and tear. No charge."
So now I have the chance to claim my damaged camera on my travel insurance and most likely not get the full compensation for the repair or just count my lucky stars and let Karma run its course. It's an easy design for me. I'm already one up in the Karma stakes and I'm happy with my clear conscious.
#KarmaRocks #Buddha #AHappyLittleVegemite #FT
