One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one’s capacity.”-– Pierre-Auguste Renoir 

the first of the month; time to check electronics in the studio and the lab.

in or out? when you put the camera, meter, whatsit away, what is your cleanup and storage protocol? Perhaps you haven’t considered the question. When you’re done, do you leave stuff in the bag or on a shelf.

In my commercial world, the process of ending one thing was prep for the next.

In the age of the professional studio every assignment had a set up and a teardown time. cameras along with all equipment were cleaned at shoots end; repairs needed were noted.. before a shoot the equipment was checked; this included batteries for those portable electric items. items which were stored a long time while being assumed always at the ready were checked monthly; batteries being swapped out, freshly charged ones being put into service. For Equipment cage operations someone in charge of the cage followed the procedure with every equipment check-in and check-out. Schools of journalism instilled the discipline in their students which likely spread throughout that industry.

I keep batteries out of infrequently used darkroom equipment, but do keep batteries in the actively used cameras. Lightmeters are not stored more than a week with batteries enclosed. When the meter is being stored, it is stored with its battery put into a bag-box with a tag marked with dates. If the meter is going out pn location it is tested with vtvm. Field kits always include tested spares.

Equipment Poor:

It is also a time to prune, to dead-head equipment. If it isn’t being used, since I’m not a collector, and it is a dust collector, I consider passing it along. 

Emergency in the gun-belt states. Most of the US experiences competitive power failures. So the Free Markup has devised the house-batt. I keep batteries in flashlights; along side these are 8-hour candles. And so it goes.

There remains the ground of difference between being awake and being aware