Sharing the beauty of the world through photography and writings.
"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. " .... Ansel Adams
Welcome to my blog for photographers and nature lover's around the world. I hope you enjoy my chitter chatter about life, nature, gardening...and a little bit of kitchen.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Procrastination

Well...as I was finishing up my post from Sunday, my external hard drive decided it was time to stop working.  Crashed.  It isn't even a year old.   If I remember correctly...it has about 10000 pictures on it.  No...they weren't all backed up because..

Well, I could blame it on the depression of winter.  The laziness that sets in.  The lack of initiative. My insistence of working out after work and the exhaustion as a result that keeps me out of focus. I could blame it on the relationship issues I am having right now that has me completely off balance.

But...

No...it is my own fault. I've been pretty good up until the past few months to keep things backed up.  I just didn't expect that such a new drive was going to create an issue.  I just started working with it in the middle of 2013 in order to move files off of my lap top to free up space and have a more portable way of taking my photos with me if I wanted to.

Winter set in and my photo taking slowed down and so I thought all would be okay.  Again...I just purchased the drive probably less than six months ago.

So...so...bummed.

I've taken it to a photographer friend that has special equipment and...it puzzled him.  I have the drive open now and will need to take it back to him to see if he can get it to read long enough to back the files back up on another external.  If not...it might take a bit more money to get it done.  Not a happy camper at this point.

I am just hoping and praying the next step will be successful..without a large expense.  I think for the most part things are backed up on another drive except some of the latest portrait shoots I did which are already published on my website.

My heartbreak will be the loss of the past two weekends where I did photo shoot field trips with some lady friends to Door County and Lake Michigan.  Of course, I could go out and try to reshoot but...the weather would have to be just right to capture the moods I did those days.  For once, I was impressed with the mood I captured.  I am always my worst critic...and now...I guess I can really be on my case about....

Procrastinating!!

It doesn't totally put a damper on my project of 'Finding Your eye'....just a damper on my ego, per se.

And just two days before this happened, I had deleted the pictures off of two of the cards that contained some of the photos.  Some are still on one of the cards.

My gratefulness from all of this is that it did happen now...in winter when I didn't have even a larger volume of photos that aren't backed up. Now is the time I have to rethink everything.  Reposition my workflow and get set up to have continuos back up and multiple copies.  It's just another expense.  An expense now that hopefully will save an expensive cost later if I really have to spend a lot of money to capture photos that I truly don't want to lose.

My dilemma now is...are my photos worth paying  a few hundred dollars to a technician to try to get them back?  The guy on my left shoulder says...absolutely not.  The one on my right shoulder says, absolutely...but see what is on the other back up first to see what truly is missing.  If I could pay for only the ones I really want to get back, I'm pretty sure the only ones not backed up that I would want are the ones that I took the last couple of weeks.

What would you do?  Pay several hundred dollars to get back photos that in the long run might only be for your enjoyment?

Wish me luck.  Friday is still two days away..so far away.

I am thankful it wasn't major portrait shoots.  So very grateful.

2 comments:

  1. That's a hard call, recovering photos. For me personally, I would be upset but figure I can always take more photos. We do collect them very quickly. BUT, I don't know what was on YOUR memory card. I hope you find an answer that brings you peace.

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    1. I have taken the drive to a computer shop that came highly recommended and I agreed to a cap on the cost. I just dropped it off yesterday so we will see what they can do. I did discover that my two most recent shoots where I had reformatted the cards and didn't take pictures on them yet, I can get those recovered very easily by a friend. So that made me feel so much better. Again...I believe I had most everything up through October backed up. It is now just the big chore of reloading them all back into my Lightroom. Yes, for the most part....the pictures can be captured again and, on the more positive side...maybe even better!! Thank you for your comments. They really helped.

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