Gear failure on assignment

 I was back in Western Australia this week on assignment for Australia Geographic magazine and I had a gear failure incident. The odd thing is is the gear was what I would consider a solid piece of equipment, my firewire 800 cable. I guess I just take simple things like computer cords for granted when I connect

my Lexar card reader and external harddrives to my laptop. I did have a backup usb 2.0 card reader, but my downloads took four times as long than with my firewire 800 cord. But really I shouldn't have been too worried- after all the compact flash cards are the most stable and secure place to store photos. I just made sure I carried my CF cards everywhere I went and during the eight days in WA I managed to avoid fire, lighting and theft, the three things CF cards can not protect your photos from. As for the cord I have no idea what went wrong with it, there was no external damage, it just failed to carry juice to my external devices.

Next time I will take a back-up cord because I didn't get much sleep on this last shoot as I waited hours for my flash cards to download. This photo is from my November trip to WA. Relaxing in D'Entrecasteaux National Park as my laptop is busy in the back seat of the car backing up images.