When I deliver photos to a client, I always stress saving your digital files. After you’ve made the investment to go outside, take photos and pay for them, the last thing you want is to discover that they have gone missing, or worse, you deleted your only copies on accident.
Which is why I’m confessing how extremely lucky I am to have these photos of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens Japanese Arboretum.
Back in November, I took my photo cards out of my camera and ran into a problem with my computer; it was work-intensive enough that I copied photos from half of my photo cards—not including these photos from our excursion to Duke. I set those aside, packed for Thanksgiving, and grabbed the wrong pile of photo cards, formatted them, and took them to Virginia with me. It wasn’t until I sat down to work on the Duke photos that I realized they had been on the same card.
Desperately, I scavenged through the internet to find anything that might help me recover more than an hour of photo-taking and the beautiful lakes, leaves and wildlife the hubs and two friends of ours had seen on our journey. Thanks to various software, I recovered the photos you see below. But I’m not ashamed to say that I cried tears of despair and joy; despair that my favorite sights from the day—a prayer alcove in the trees and an algae-frosted pond—were gone; joy that the majestic Grey Heron and the red bridge were still intact.
So here’s my PSA for you: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS download your photos before deleting them, and double check before you format your card. When I say download the gallery, don’t wait, don’t assume having it in one place is enough—put it in three or four places if you want to do like I do (excepting this one instance): on your hard drive, on an external hard drive, on your Mom’s hard drive, in the cloud, in Dropbox, anywhere, but never assume they’re backed up until you’ve seen the proof with your own eyes, and then you shouldn’t have to worry about losing your photos. Choose safe—someday you will love the security.
Choose your love, love your choice.
