What’s the first thing you would grab in a fire (people and pets aside)? Chances are that your photographs are at the top of your list.
They are for me. Only, ever since we started using digital cameras, I haven’t actually printed most of our family photos. All of my photos for the past five or six years (I was slow to come around to digital) are on this computer.
So, when a virus attacked my computer yesterday, and it appeared that all my files had been lost, I was beside myself with fear. I had backed up some of the photos on external hard drives, but I kept the hard drives attached to my computer. The virus was therefore able to travel to them as well.
While the drives appeared to be empty when clicked on, I could see that the space on the drives was still occupied. Fortunately, four hours (and a few tears) later, I managed to retrieve the files. The virus had actually hidden them and I used a handy online tool called unhide.exe to retrieve them. Thankfully, there are benevolent computer geniuses out there to offset the evil ones. Thanks to www.bleepingcomputer.com I have my precious photos back.
What is it that makes photos so important to us? I think it’s because they unlock moments that might otherwise stay hidden in our minds. While I was looking through our family photos today, they brought back so many memories.
When my daughter was smaller, she looked like my grandmother, with her curly hair and her sparkly blue eyes. Seeing the resemblance in these photos reminded me of a time that we visited my grandmother in her nursing home one summer in Nova Scotia. My kids have always been mischievous. As we were leaving her room, Nana said, “They’re beautiful…they’re devils, but they’re beautiful.” I think she said it with appreciation, because she had a devilish streak herself.
What parent doesn’t have the photo of the kid with food on her face?
I cherish this series of photos that we took while visiting Toronto’s Kensington Market with friends. It also documents my brief (and probably ill-advised) red hair phase.
There are many much-loved photos of our visits to my parents’ cottage, where the kids play on the very beach I spent my summers on.
And water park delights.
Bicycle adventures in front of our first home.
Among my most cherished photos…those of our summer road trips to Nova Scotia.
I even caught my dad reading my Oprah magazine at the beach in Mabou. He said he had never been to that particular beach before, even though it was a stone’s throw from where he grew up. Interesting how we take travel for granted nowadays, isn’t it?
Here’s a cottage we rented in Nova Scotia one year.
And my little one enjoying her temporary home.
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I have lots of saucy face pictures.
Now my task is to create a better system for storing my precious pics. I also want to finally print some photographic highlights and start filling up photo albums.
How terrifying!! I'm glad you rescued the pictures and shared them with us. They are all great! I use an external hd that I keep unplugged from the computer :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Ruthie! Yes, I was quite upset. I have unplugged the external hd now, but I don't have all the photos on it. I have some work to do. :)
DeleteYikes! That's really scary. I try to back up on external hard drives but there's always a period where stuff isn't yet backed up and I can't imagine losing shots. Great pictures, so glad you recovered them!
ReplyDeleteHi Lilly, I hate to lose pictures too. I lost a whole summer once because of a faulty SD card. :(
DeleteOh thank goodness you were able to retrieve them!! I am a compulsive multi-saver thanks to a mishap back when I was writing my thesis {75 pages gone, never to be seen again...thought I was going to die!}. We have GBooks {one each for work, home &...ahem...games}, memory sticks & I've even burned CDs! So glad you could save the memories {& for what its worth, you look charming as a readhead lol}
ReplyDelete75 pages of your thesis? That would be heart attack inducing! I can understand why you are cautious now!
DeleteI'm glad you like the red hair. ;) It turned out different every time I got it coloured. It was too stressful.
I'm so glad you were able to get them back! that's so scary!!! Thankfully so many of my pictures are on facebook/blogs/etc it's not tOO bad!
ReplyDeleteI actually was thinking that all I had left was the pictures on my blog. Not quite representative of five years, but better than nothing!
DeletePhewwww is an understatement! We once lost some photos in a hard drive failure, fortunately most were backed up but we lost a couple months worth of baby photos which was bad enough. It was on the ONE occasion my husband forgot to do the backup.
ReplyDeleteOh! Bad timing!
DeleteI think I had that same virus a couple of months ago! I was so mad - took me all day to get myself back up and running. Nothing was lost but a few hours of my day.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that happened to you, but I'm glad you didn't lose anything.
Really glad you recovered them! We have just bought a hard drive. I will make sure that I don't leave it attatched! Lovely photos!
ReplyDeleteOh, such a heart attack waiting to happen! I take so many photographs of my children and am so bad about backing them up. Like you, I have failed to order hard copies and just load them onto our computer. Luckily my husband is pretty good about backing them up though.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail on the head when you said that those photos bring back so many memories. You've inspired me to go look through the last year of my baby's life! Love your photos, by the way!
Thanks Lauren. Our children will be lucky to have lots of photos of themselves!
Deleteoh how precious! i am the same jo, all our pictures are in my computer and i prolly wont know how to get them.... thanks for reminding me.. now i will save them in a thumb drive and print some... your photos tell a story... sweet stories... happy precious stories... :)
ReplyDeleteSo glad you were able to save the pictures! I do the same thing with mine. I save all my pictures and then back them up, but I know I don't do it often enough. If something happened right now there are months worth of pictures I'd lose. I guess I should do something about that!
ReplyDeleteThe pictures of your children are so precious! I thought I had lost my pictures once, but thankfully I was able to retrieve them. I often try to keep them in photobucket, but I think I need to look for a contingency just in case...
ReplyDeleteYour Dad & Oprah just made my day. So so fun!
ReplyDeleteYeah, he's not normally an Oprah fan. Not sure he knows who she is. :)
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