I Lost a Memory Card, But I Wasn’t Worried
Yesterday I photographed a track team for a high school. When I am finished with a job, I remove the micro SD card in my camera, place it in a cardholder, replace the card in the camera, and then put the card holder in my pocket. When I arrived home, I removed the cardholder from my pocket to go through the images and upload them for the client. It took a second for me to realize that the card from that particular job was missing.
Most photographers would be going out of their minds trying to find the card, but I briefly looked for it, and when I couldn’t find it, I wasn’t worried. I only use cameras with two memory card slots, and they are ALWAYS set to write all images to BOTH cards. I removed the additional SD card from the camera, loaded the images on my computer, and uploaded them for the client. This was not the first time that I’ve needed my backup. I’ve had memory cards fail, get corrupted, and even fried one with static electricity handing it to a colleague. Never once have I failed to deliver the images I have taken.
But what would happen if I was unable to deliver the images? Rescheduling something small like a team picture is easy enough, but what about a wedding? If a photographer has good liability insurance, that will often pay to restage the event so that it can be photographed again. When hiring a photographer, make sure that you are paying a true professional. They should have backup equipment, have a plan in place for lost or damaged memory cards, and they should also have insurance!
In case you were curious, I did end up locating the missing memory card. I was back at the same school today for more team photos and found it. It had fallen out of the cardholder when I was putting it back in my pocket.