Spring Snow, Customer Service

Once in a while -- even in these tough economic times -- I am pleasantly surprised by some act of great customer service from a company. This was the case recently with Pentax. I had a Pentax Optio WP camera that had started including unwanted vertical lines in every photo. Very fine lines, but still annoyingly obvious. So I wrote to Pentax explaining the problem and also mentioning that I did not have the receipt for the camera and thus no proof of warranty.

Randall Schumacher at Pentax replied and suggested I send the camera in "for examination." He said they would assess the problem and that they would fix it if the camera was still under warranty or give me a free repair estimate if it was not. So I boxed it up and sent it off.

About a month later, the camera came back. Fixed. And it is taking photos like the recent one above (of Indian Plum blossoms under a March 15 snowfall). It probably was a small fix for the Pentax techs, but it returned to my use a perfectly good camera (and my only waterproof one!). My hat is off to Mr. Schumacher and his pals at Pentax for performing customer service beyond their legal requirement. That's the way to inspire customer loyalty!

Morning Meditation

It's always nice coming home from a journey -- returning to the familiar sights, sounds, smells, foods, people. But travel changes how we look at all these things too, the experiences lingering just under the surface, ready to re-emerge as a memory or a comparison or an observation. Yesterday I showed some photos of my recent India journey to some family & friends, and found it amazing how many observations I had about the culture. Not just the facts of where I was and what I did, but how things are done there, and the depth and quality of the cultural differences.

Travel changes me. Travel changes my thought, and my eyes, and the way I look at people. I expect it will continue to change and enhance the way I take photographs as well.

This image is from my last morning in Delhi, walking around the ancient buildings dotting Lodi Garden. This building is a combined tomb and mosque, where people were both praying (Muslim) and doing morning yoga exercises (Hindu). With joggers running on nearby paths.

Red Carpet of Faith

Mosque, Old Delhi, India