Journaling reads: I was so excited to use my SLR camera on our trip to Laos and Cambodia! I was looking forward to the bright colours, exotic shapes and adorable children I would be capturing on the way. Theo was a bit dubious, since this camera is quite a bit bigger and heavier to be carrying around then our old point-and shoot. It would also be a lot more expensive if this camera would get stolen or damaged on the trip. Both things have happened to me in the past! I assured him that I would be the one to carry it, that I would be careful, and argued why have a great camera if youre not using it on a trip like this! Needless to say I was shocked and sad when I took the camera out of the bag once we had arrived. Its lens was well and truly cracked! Good thing it was only the protective UV lens that I screwed on, that had been damaged. There was just no way I could get it unscrewed! Both of us tried it, to no avail. We tried the one and only camera shop in the little town we were staying at, but these good people were not going to risk doing any more damage. During our first week we tried unscrewing the lens several times, visited several small repair shops but nothing worked. In the meantime, I used my old point-and-shoot to make all these photos I had imagined before the trip. We arrived in the first biggish touristy town, but again no help. I finally sat down with the camera, an ash tray and some tissues and began to remove tiny splinters of glass from the lens, mindful not to scratch the real lens. It worked! To try it out, I took some photos of the buffalo in the garden, that the hotel management used to keep the grass cut! Ive never been so happy with a picture in my life! I was so relieved I was going to be able to use my priced SLR for the remainder of the trip! I proceeded to take about 300 photos along the way, and scrapbook many of them. The camera shop in my home town took the camera in for a day, and of course removed the remaining piece of the UV lens and replaced it with a new one. In the end, it did what I bought it for; to protect my expensive zoom lens!
Credits:
Paper from Lost in Translation AddOn by JoanneBrisebois Designs @ Oscraps,
Krafty Frames 1 by Katie Pertiet @ DD,
Compass Overlay (Wander page kit) by Anna Aspnes @ DD,
Fonts Perpetua, Elephant, Ballpark & Guilty

TFL, Monique