I broke it!

This couldn't have happened at a worst time!

I am now without a camera to use on my Black & White Photo final!

I was setting up the tripod on the staircase to my room in order to get a shot of the floor I liked. I didn't want to change out lenses, so I tried my damned to make sure the tripod would be able to stay put between two steps. As such, two legs of the tripod were longer than the other one.

Given how little light I had, I attached my shutter cable to the camera. This is to ensure that my camera doesn't shake when I hit the shutter button causing my picture to come out all crappy and blurry.

I couldn't see if I was focused or not, so I decided to turn on some lights. Because my stairwell is so narrow, I tried my best to get around the camera without knocking it over. When I thought I was in the clear, I turned to turn on a few lights.

That's when I heard a crashing sound.

I turned around and saw the camera, tripod and all, fell down the stairs. I quickly went to it as if it was a toddler that fell down instead of a camera. I checked for damages of any kind. That's when I saw the horror.

The shutter button was pressed in farther than it was suppose to go. The force of the fall caused the shutter cable to push it into the camera casing. The fall also broke my shutter cable to the point where it is completely useless. Also, the angle of the fall cause the shutter cable to push the shutter button at an angle that caused the metal casing of the camera to pop out some. Why? Because it pushed the button at an angle strong enough to misalign it with whatever mechanism inside that actually opens the shutter. I also cannot see through the view finder.

In a state of panic, I tried to see if I could at least advance my film, but I couldn't. If I couldn't even do that, I wasn't going to attempt rewinding it. The last thing I need to happen is to lose 10 shots because of a light leak.

I couldn't do anything, so I did the one thing I could do. I told my dad.

Needless to say, because it is his camera and an antique, he was really pissed. I showed him the camera, and he tried to fix it as best he could. He was able to get the shutter button back to where it was suppose to be, but it was still misaligned. It wouldn't press down the right way, and I still couldn't advance the film. Dad believes something inside broke as well during the fall.

My film, however, is pretty much stuck inside now. Frame 11, for all I know, is being overexposed as we speak having been left open for well over an hour while being moved from place to place. The best I can hope for is that the light doesn't leak into the other frames.

Knowing my aunt takes pictures, I asked if I could use her camera. She said no. She has film in her camera, and she would like to finish that roll. Needless to say, the only time she takes pictures is whenever the urge comes.

Defeated completely, I fired off an emergency e-mail to my teacher explaining the situation.

There goes my final for Black & White.