Using a standalone reader for whatever media your camera uses (eg CompactFlash) is one option... alternatively, your camera might work like my HP 315 camera. I have no specific driver for it, and I haven't tried it with gphoto, but I just use the usb-storage driver. Basically, just mount your camera as a SCSI hard disk, /dev/sd1 or somesuch. Mine has a fat filesystem on it with the photos in the directory hp315.
-- Soli Deo Gloria -Rob French