At one point I said to myself: I'm going to pack up the next time one of these costumers says "no" when I ask them if they would like to pose for the photobooth. It was 10:20pm and I had just squeezed the shutter for maybe the 400th time and I was getting tired. The equipment was still going, my rotating group of assistants were still game, I still had a pouch full of CF cards that could be swapped in. I was shooting JPEGs besides and I could have filled them with hundreds more shots.

See this pic? Aside from a few landscapes I took a day into my Hornby trip this is the kind of picture you can expect from the grand expedition. Why is that? Well, it's what happens when you

Don't take backup

They -- the pros -- are always telling you, aren't they? Take a backup. Anything. A G9. Uncle Bob's film SLR. That used 10D that someone on Craigslist posted for $250 last week. All of that I could have got last week -- even rented -- if I had known