Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Never Delete In-Camera. NEVER EVER !


This post is a reminder for me and, I hope, a lesson for everyone who shoots with a digital camera. I've read it a thousand times and probably told friends hundreds of times "Never delete photos you've taken in your camera. Always wait until you download, then delete after viewing the shots on your computer monitor".
This past weekend, I attended an exotic Festival that takes place in the northern area of Okinawa. I had been planning the shoot for months in advance, got a magazine interested in the story, made 3 liaison visits to the remote location and even arranged to have a translator accompany me. The Festival and exotic rituals take place only once every two years
Loaded-up with 2 cameras, 5 sets of fully-charged batteries and 5 SD cards, tripod, cable release, toothbrush and paste, moist towels, camera cleaning gear, a back pack and hiking boots; what could possibly go wrong?
Let me tell you what went wrong. I decided to DELETE ONE BLURRED SHOT IN-CAMERA.
A couple of enthusiastic party-goers came stumbling towards my tripod in the dark and I moved twice to prevent them stumbling over it. This took place as I was hitting DELETE and paying more attention to them, than I was to what I was doing. Over 100 shots of an important event for my assignment are gone forever!
What's the photo here got to do with all this? That's my Grandkids sketching the events I lost. They're making the sketches from shots I took of someone else's photos while I'm looking for a magazine that likes sketches, as well as, photos in their articles.
NEVER DELETE IN-CAMERA !