What Not To Do

This is one of my more popular recent My Final Photos as determined by the number of likes on my social media platforms.

I’ve curated so many photos into my archive that some of the actions I take to move photos from SD cards to a hard drive for storage and editing are almost done as muscle memory.

Open the camera card door, eject the card, slip it into the card reader in my laptop, press ctrl-G on Photo Mechanic, and listen for the ding that signals the download is complete.

All those actions except the ding are in a very prescribed order and process requiring very little thought by me. I’ve done it successfully since the first digital cameras 30 years ago. The prescription follows proprioception awareness of hands, arms, fingers, the SD card slot, ctrl-G keys, and the Ingest button.

The only real variable is how long before the ding marks the completed download. The more photos the longer the time. Sometimes I walk away to get a drink or perform some simple tasks as I wait for the ding.

This time the ding immediately followed the Ingest command. So quick it startled me. There was a problem.