My wife and I were invited to attend the opening of the new wing at the Broken Hill Royal Flying Doctor Base (via connections to the major benefactor) - fly in to BH on Thursday, attend functions and the opening yesterday morning, and back home yesterday evening. I considered taking the D300, but decided not to because: 1. there won't be any great photo opportunities in the limited time; 2. I'm lazy and couldn't be bothered carrying the camera; and 3. see 2.
Thursday was as predicted - fly in, attend a reception (met the NSW Governor, Her Excellency Marie Bashir - wow, what a lovely lady), dinner...nothing lost here.
Yesterday: official opening at the RFDS Base...hmmm I thought, the camera would have been useful here, if only to record the event. Then disaster: our small group was taken to a couple of stations near BH - the first one has its homestead and surrounds preserved as left 40-50 years ago. Even though we were there for only 20 minutes, I could have taken at least 100 images. Then we went and had a picnic lunch under the gums in a dry creek bed - right next to a disused rail track, dead trees framing it with the hills behind. I could have cried. Then lastly a sheep shearing demo in a small shearing shed - the light falling across the shearer from behind as he did his stuff, plus all the bric a brac on the walls that were screaming for a shutter to be released in their vicinity, were finally enough to reduce me to a pathetic, weeping soul.
And to make things worse, there was my wife using her trusty 10 year old Pentax, snapping away on FILM, complaining that she should have brought another roll.
(Oh, and note to God: the streaming sun through the storm clouds on our flight back was not appreciated)
So my advice to everyone is TAKE YOUR CAMERA WITH YOU. Surgically implant it. Don't talk yourself into leaving it behind because of convenience/weight/laziness/stupidity/schedule/laziness/stupidity and laziness.
Frank
