Well it finally happened.  It isn't the first and probably wont be the last time either.  My Nikon D750 (Nicky) met it's untimely demise on Saturday.  While out on another morning shoot with the crew (Special K, Speedy, Picasso and Curly Top), I had the unfortunate experience of losing my camera to the watery depths of long island sound.  The depths equates to about a foot of water but it doesn't take that much to ruin your camera.  

I found a nice spot to set up for sunrise.  I climbed over to what appeared to be an old concrete base for some sort of platform.  I set up my tripod and  hooked up my backpack to the tripod to get what gear I needed out.  Normally I have the camera already on tripod and tethered before nearing the water but not today unfortunately.  While attempting to tether the camera to the tripod, a small shift of the camera bag made me grab it to stabilize the bag and out of my hand went the camera.  Begin slow motion sequence as the camera falls.  First hitting the edge of the concrete platform then into the water.  I first had to zip up my pack, unhook it from the tripod and put it on my back before I could attempt to rescue the camera. It was dark but I had my headlamp on.  The camera was easy to locate but there were pieces missing.  The battery door had come off and with it the battery.  The door for the memory card slots where it hit was broken as well but still attached to the camera.  It was still too dark to see how bad it was or where the other pieces were so I gathered my stuff and went to the shore to put everything down on dry land.  I was standing there waving my camera around trying to get out any excess water and everyone was wondering what was wrong.  I explained that the camera had fallen into the drink and everyone was quick to help me look for the missing pieces.  I didn't want to ruin the whole point of the outing so after urging everyone else to keep getting setup for the sunrise I took Nicky back to the car so it would not contaminate the camera bag with water.  So with Nicky in the car, I went back to the group and got my backup ready.  The backup was the Sony A6000 I purchased for my Chicago trip.

Usually things don't start off so dramatic first thing in the morning.  At any rate I wasn't about to let this little setback ruin the rest of my day.  A small bit of good news, as the tide was receding someone found my battery door cover, woohoo!  Sunrise was not the greatest and not a lot of atmosphere but there was that great morning light and the little Sony as expected did well that morning as well as at our secondary location.  After a few hours of shooting the park started to get crowded with runners, walkers and various other morning folk.  We even ran into a man with a rescue parrot on his shoulder.  It was time, breakfast was calling.  We decided to grab a bite to eat in Milford and the place was just down the street from Milford Camera where we   drop Nicky off and at least get a diagnostic or estimate.  The breakfast place was small and very busy but we got right in.  Breakfast was awesome, I will be returning here when in the area again.  The place is called the Corner Restaurant and you can check out their menu here (http://thecornerbrunch.com/locations/corner-restaurant/).  A most excellent find!

So after I paid 20 bucks to have the camera sent out for a postmortem, we headed over to another Milford location that's been abandoned for some 20 years now.  I believe it was an old aerosol factory at one point.  It's all graffiti and junk now and probably rife with asbestos but it was a very cool place to shoot.  I believe we spent several hours at this location trying not to get in each others shots.  We ran into a man that lives there apparently and a local tagger finishing up some work he had started the day before.  Compared to most of our outings this one was not an all-dayer but it was eventful.  Wish me luck with Nicky and as always if you are a photographer, get out and shoot and enjoy the day!

A few pictures from the day are below.  I have a few that really turned out well that I am still working on.