It’s true, I’m not perfect. I almost ruined a client’s wedding once, a long time ago. The most stressful thought I had, about becoming a wedding photographer, was that if something went wrong I couldn’t re-shoot the wedding. This was of course before I had ever photographed a wedding.

I’m well past that now. I now know that something always goes wrong at a wedding. You can’t control everything, it’s just not possible. As a photographer, on any assignment, part of your job is to be prepared and creative in the event of a mishap or such.

I’ve always taken pride in my preparedness. I wrote a little while back about packing for an assignment. Always double check your lists!

So how did I almost ruin a wedding? I lost a memory card. One 4GB memory card. A good chunk of the important events of the wedding had been captured on that one card. ONE CARD! Sure I had a couple of other memory cards full of images but to be missing that many images was just heartbreaking to me. I made this little discovery while packing up my gear after the event. I checked by right coat pocket over and over again, along with every pocket on my body, every pocket in my bag, I was panicking. How in the world was I going to explain this to my clients? They had been really sweet and it was truly a beautiful wedding. I felt I was going to be sick. I walked around the place several times looking on the floor checking under chairs and mats and any thing else that this elusive memory card could have been hiding under. I felt defeated.

I don’t own any 4GB digital compact flash cards anymore. There aren’t any 2GB memory cards in my bag either. I only use 1GB cards to shoot weddings now. Yes, it’s a pain to have to change the cards out more frequently but I began my career shooting film. I can handle it. If I were to lose a card now it would only be a small fraction of the wedding that would be missing and would probably go unnoticed with the style of albums I use.

The truth is this type of thing could happen to anyone. You could lose a card. What would that do to your assignment? You could have a camera stolen that contained an 8GB memory card and now you have no camera and no photos! This happens at weddings and location shoots all too often. If you have insurance the camera can be replaced easily. The card cannot.

I didn’t lose the card after all. I found it later that night when I was taking off my coat. There was a seam separation that the card had slid into where the pocket overlaps on the inside. I sat down and just thought about how lucky I had been to have found that blasted card.

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