Lost and Found

All day I wandered through the house searching through little stacks of papers. Of all things, how could I have lost this? My friend had entrusted me with her most important picture--a snapshot of her with her two daughters taken on the day they said good-bye. She didn't know that it would be two years with only this shot to remind her of how hopeful they all were--and must continue to be until they are together again.

And now I have lost one of the only records of their last time together. Great.

"I'll scan it for you," I said. "That way we can keep it safe."

Safe. What was I thinking? In two short days I misplaced the picture and experienced a catastrophic hard drive failure. At least a thousand of my own photographs gone--poof!--never to be seen again. Searching the house, looking for my friend's photo--the key to her most important memories--I was reminded of what a critical role pictures play in telling our story, keeping our history. Without them, I start to lose the very things I vow always to remember. Without them, as in the case of my friend, we hold our children in our heart without knowing how they've grown or how they felt--the last time we said good-bye.

I'm thinking this is an occasion where sisterhood might really make a difference. Let's promise each other right now we'll scan those old photos (and memories) and that we'll back those babies up at least once a week. Leave your tips and tricks for keeping all your photos safe in the comments below along with links to the photo you must never lose.

Thanks to Flickr, I still have the originals of some of my most treasured moments. And thanks, to a flash of memory right before I sat down to type this post, I remembered that special "safe" place where I'd left my friend's photo. You better believe I'll be returning that picture first thing in the morning. I don't ever want to lose something so important ever again!

What do you say, Shutter Sisters? What's the plan to make sure we don't lose all the magic (and memories) we make with our cameras (and our dear ones) everyday? I know for certain, that here is one sister who desperately needs your help!

Comments

[Heather]

I download all my photos to Flick'r. I save them on a 2 GB flash drive. And every six months, I save 'em on disc.

Now what I need is a fireproof, waterproof box to put my discs in.

I'm serious. My biggest fear is a fire. I would save my family first, and my photos second.

Before digital photography, I would tear off to the local Kodak place with film in hand, and eagerly order the one-hour processing. It was too long to wait.

Photos are so, so important. A window of time, a trigger of memories, a rush of happiness.

I am so glad you found that photo. I truly am.

[Lyn]

Fire scares me too. So many pictures -- gone in an instant.

So here's a silly secret: I actually store a little shoe box of CDs with photos on it in the trunk of my car. They are mostly from the first few months of my twin girls' lives, but some others are scans of old family photos. I started storing a CD in my trunk in case of a house fire when I was in grad school and in constant fear that my computer would catch fire and I'd lose my dissertation (God forbid I'd have to do it over...) and it just stuck!

Strange, huh?

[Ruth]

I know I would be heartbroken if I lost pics like this one...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/createdintruth/2440552604/

[Barbara]

I recently had my laptop crash. I was devastated and thought I had lost the pictures from my son's first six months. Luckily a friend was able to recover them for me. He encouraged me to make two discs of my pictures every few months. I keep one copy and I give the other to my father in law to keep. That way, if there was a fire (god forbid) at least my father in law would have copies of mostof my pictures. I thought is was a great idea.

[melody]

No suggestions...I'm looking for a few. But you have certainly kicked by butt into gear about backing up my photos first thing tomorrow and storing copies away from our home.

My first son was before digital. The photo lab lost every single roll of film of his first Christmas. We will never have those visuals.

And I LOVE this shot. Those drops are touchable.

[Marcie]

Of late - I've been backing all my digitals on two back-up drives. If one fails, my hope is that I'll still have the other.

Scarey thoughts...but very real.
Here's a once-in-a-lifetime capture:

http://marciescudder.blogspot.com/2007/10/early-bird.html

[HSY]

I have a "task" set to repeat every other week on my computer: BACK UP COMPUTER DATA. After several hard drive crashes, I never want to lose precious documents again. It only takes me a few minutes every other week to hit "copy" and bring the latest copies of all of my precious photos and documents onto a flash drive. I've also taken to backing up sets of photos onto CDs and keeping those in a fireproof safe (along with my valuable papers). Having seen the devastation of a house fire in my family (my aunt and uncle lost EVERYTHING), I want my digital photos saved as much as my passport and financial documents in case of fire.

[Lindy]

All of my photos taken prior to my move to the UK in 2005 were lost when when the desktop I left behind at my parents house crashed. Those same photos that I had transfered to my laptop (that I took with me to the UK) were also lost when my laptop was stolen. It's one of the reasons I joined Flickr. I upload everything to Flickr and also to flash drives.

[divrchk]

My parent's building was flooded a few years ago and a bunch of photos were destroyed but most were able to be saved. I visited a few months later and spent my week scanning those photos (671 of them) and my parents organized them, named them, etc. and then copied them onto a cd and sent them to my sister and I. For my photos, I upload to flickr, shutterfly and also back them up regularly to another hard drive.

[divrchk]

Oh, I forgot to mention that those scanned photos dated back to my great grandparents - before my parents were even born. Also, they were all of mine and my sisters childhood photographs. Make sure those photos are properly stored!

[Carrie Harvey]

I have also suffered from the crash and burn of a laptop and a desktop! I have learned my lesson: I back up my pictures and important documents to an external hard drive (WD) every Sunday night. The external hard drive is kept (along with insurance papers, wills, birth certificates, etc) in a firesafe box my insurance man recommended.

Best $100 I have ever spent!!

[Leslie]

I copy all my images onto CD or DVD once a a year...but now I think it needs to be more often than that! Speaking of missing images, I'm still trying to find one shot that I need for an album for my graduating senior. As best I can tell, it was the year I switched from film to digital and somehow this image is nowhere to be found. It's truly bugging me!

[gkgirl]

sage advice.

i'm doing this tonight.
:)

[littlepurplecow]

I'm the one in need of advice on this subject, but I have to say that your image of the leaf is gorgeous. Love the colors and texture so much.

[Erin]

I copy all of mine onto an external hard drive. I need to kick my butt to do it more often, and to get a fire/water proof safe to put the hard drive in for safe keeping.

[Jen]

I plan to buy an external storage hard drive, but currently I back everything up on to DVD.

[princessgranola]

We save all the pictures of our daughter on a flash drive every couple of months and then pass it around the family so everyone downloads it onto a hard-drive- all the aunts and uncles and grandparents love getting new pics on their computers and our photos are backed-up in case of fire or crash or whatever.

I also upload to Shutterfly regularly.

And a couple times a year we make cd's...now we just need to start keeping them in a fire-proof box...

[Jen Hunter]

Several months ago I, too, had a hard drive crash. Devastating. I may be able to get it repaired, but it will cost lots! For now, I manually back up on CDs or DVDs, but not faithfully. I think there is a software program called 'Back up and Burn' that prompts you to insert a CD when you upload your photos for the first time. I think it's a couple hundred bucks, but it's worth it, when you consider losing a substantial amount of memories and the cost of retrieving them (if you're even able to do that). Also, I upload full-resolution photos to Flickr, and that has been a great way to back-up.

Often we get caught up in the snapping and the editing of our photos and we fail to do the very important step of backing up -- I am very guilty of this! Thanks for the reminder, Jen!!

[jen hunter]

Oh, and I forgot...I love your leaf photo, Jen ;-) Beautiful!

[deezee]

After importing photos to computer, before erasing memory card, I back up Aperture to an external hard drive. Now I just need to get images onto dvds and out of the house as another back up. (And the years of photos is albums on the shelf? I just couldn't began to scan that many...)

(If you're a mac user with Leopard - and not using Aperture - just set up Time Machine...)

[jenn]

The computer that holds my photos also has my Thesis work on it... I am _paranoid_ about having to do that all again and so I backup constantly. My laptop crashed about a month ago and even backing up as I did I thought I'd lost a week's worth of photos and data and that was devastating enough.

I am really liking Mac's "Time Machine" backup program that comes with the newest version of their OS (a consequence of having to get a new computer). As long as an external hard-drive is connected it backs up all changes hourly for 24 hours. It keeps the last back up of the day for a month, and all monthly backups until the external hard-drive is full.

Also, as a note, using an ipod as a backup drive helps against crashes but not theft...

[Melissa B (aka Photomom86)]

I am a nut when it comes to backing up my pictures. My Mac has a backup application and I have it scheduled to run backups of my picture files once a week (and sometimes I even manually run a second time) to an external hard drive (WD).

Since my sister's house recently I've been thinking that I want to back up my back up files to a DVD and put them in the safe. I treasure all photos (good and bad) because they are such a treasure and would be heartbroken if they were lost. I also like the idea of sending a disc copy to another person's house. Maybe I will start doing this once a month.

Jen, great picture above. Have you thought about taking your computer to a shop and seeing what they can recover? You will be surpirsed wha they can get. Good Luck!

[Lyn]

I'm not sure if any of the Sisters were going to post about this -- but the EBay site has just gone up for the "Bloggers for Jeni" auction. I know a bunch of us contributed, and now we have to get the word out so we can add to that fund!!

The link to the store is below -- there are some luscious items... can't wait to bid!

http://stores.ebay.com/bloggers-for-Jeni

[camerashymomma]

oh gosh, that pit in your stomach feeling of despair. i'm so glad you found that photo! i'm with all the other sisters with fears... mine for a long time was the real life fear of floods (that came and nearly took our house twice while i was pregnant with my son) the first thing in my car as the water was rising was all my photos. seriously. those are memory, those are precious and invaluable to me.

i'm on a laptop too, so i double back everything up. i use flickr as 'storage' and filing. and once a month (or after a specific vacation or special event where i have a ton of photos) i download all my iPhoto pics from that month onto cd. (granted, i have alot of cd's, but i'd prefer it that way to having no idea if they were safe) now, every month or so, i'll go and print out a few of my favorites to have hardcopies for a treasure box of random photo loves.

someone had a good idea of putting the cd's into a fireproof box. i think that's a great idea! mine are scattered all about in desks right now. it'd be smarter to keep them all in the same place! :)

great post to spur conversation and thought!

[melissa]

One option I am surprised to have not seen mentioned is using a backup company like carbonite or mozy. I am about to subscribe to Mozy and then also burn photos to a dvd once a month on top of setting up a flicker. The problem with putting things on external hardrives is that sometimes they can fail to or you need multiple ones to keep up with the insane amount of photos you have.

[Tony]

Sorry for your loss, I can help with your hard drive failure, email me

[carie]

I subscribed to MOZY and love it. I also try to upload to somewhere like snapfish regularly now as well. I lost photos of my daughters first trip to the Ocean, first time to Disney, and beautiful images of her while in Mexico. I was devastated. I'm still holding out hope that someday I can find someone that can find them on my hard-drive.

[LawyerMama]

I have an external back-up drive. It backs up everything in my My Documents file (which includes my photos & all my writing) at 2am every night.

CD's only last 7-10 years, so while I frequently back up stuff on CD before I erase my card in the camera, I don't rely on it for long term.

My aunt & uncle lost EVERY SINGLE PHOTO they had of their boys in hurricane Katrina. We were able to recreate almost every important photo for them & that was a great lesson. The best way to protect your photos is to share them with the people you love.

There are so many photos I would cry over if I lost them forever. This is one of them:
http://flickr.com/photos/lawyermama/2406317863/in/set-72157603638375698/

[mec]

I store my photos on an external drive, and at the end of the month, I burn them onto a dvd and store that.I also try to print the photos that mean the most to me as soon as possible.

[Michelle Potter]

I upload all of my files to a photo gallery on my domain. I do it as soon as I am done naming / editing / etc. That way I have a copy on my computer, and one on my server.

Then, every so often, I backup all of the photos on my computer to an external harddrive. I also backup the MySQL databases from my blog and gallery -- I'd really hate to lose my tags, captions, and other info about my photos.

What I really want is to have all the data from my domain automatically backed up to my external harddrive every week or so. My husband knows how to do this, and he makes sure his consulting clients have good backups, but he hasn't set this up for me even though I've talked about it for years. I also want an external drive that is JUST for my backups. It worries me to no end that something that has nothing to do with my backups will cause the harddrive to fail -- or what if he's moving things around and accidentally copies over my directory???? I can't tell you how many times I've gone looking for my stuff, and it's been moved, and he says, "Well, I know it's here *somewhere*." And it is, but STILL! (Last night I had to check THREE different drives before I found it!)

I also really want to have prints. It's my dream to get all of my thousands of photos printed and organized into albums.

[jen lemen]

thanks for the great ideas, everyone! keep them coming. and littlepurplecow--ironically, the computer i was borrowing to do my post wasn't working that well either, so i had to pull a picture off flickr randomly and quick! sorry sisters that there isn't a better tie to the post, but it's one of my favorites! :)

[Trude]

Thanks to my Mac, I use the Backup program to schedule regular (weekly) backups, both to my EHD that I have directly connected, and also to our new Time Capsule. I have total faith in my iMac, but after reading people's horror stories I figured better safe than sorry...

[Shelli]

My husband bought an extra hard drive, and I back up all our photos to it each time I download them. I also use Mac Gallery, and I have several of our best photos on it. I use to send my mother copies of all my photos on CD, so she has copies of most of my photos...before the Mac Gallery came into the picture.

But I have many photos in photo albums (taken before digital) that I need to scan. Ugh - what a task!! But you are right - it needs to be done.

I also back up my novel manuscript to the hard drive and to a flash drive. Now that you remind me - I need to put a CD in the fire safe.

[Bethany]

Living in Southern California, every fire season I get a little paranoid. Thanks for reminding me to back-up my photos and the rest of my important files! My dad bought me my hard drive and now I am so thankful to have it. I have thousands of photos and documents on my laptop and after having gone through it 2-3 times before, I don't feel like losing anymore information. I want to back-up this baby more often, and this was the nudge I needed. Thanks again!

[Kacey]

I back my photos up monthly to an external hard drive. I burn the photos to CD every 6 months or so, and take the CDs over to my parents. Because if we had a fire, knock on wood, it wouldn't do much good to have them backed up to a hard drive in the same house as the computer. Of course with this method I could lose like 6 months of photos except for the ones uploaded to Flickr, and web versions of pics on my blog.

The thing I need to do is scan in photos from when the boys were little. Then send those backups off to my parents' house too. There is no backup to all those photos right now.

Thanks for the reminder.Maybe I'll start on it this weekend...

[Karen]

My new MacBook came with Time Machine which I use every time I upload new photos. The backups go to a dedicated external hard drive. I also burn all the photos that I have edited and have started to upload my photos to Flickr (long ways to go there.) What I realize reading your post, is that none of my childhood photos are scanned or backed up. That's a project I need to begin in earnest. Thanks for the motivation.

[Gena -MI]

Thanks for the reminder! I keep a notecard above the computer reminding me to back up. Then whenever I backup to an external drive, I write in the date. I also upload to a couple of different places. Whenever I place an order, I like to order a photo CD as well.

[Jeremy the Great]

Losing precious photos is the worst. It's such a shame to have those memories of times past ruined and lost to us forever. Backing up your photos is a great idea, to say the least—keeping at least two copies in separate locations is a great idea as well. The only issue with that is you can't see the memories and memorable moments unless you load them (or open them) on the computer. Here's the solution, and please forgive the shameless name dropping plug—but I feel that this is something that we, and our many generations to come, can all benefit from—visit http://www.heritagemakers.com. Not only can you store a significant amount of photos on this site, but you can also make a book (various sizes) so you can view and share those memories with friends and family. What a great idea!

[W. Lotus]

Whenever I import my photos into my iPhoto library, I do not format my memory card until I have imported the "keeper" images into the iPhoto library on my external hard drive. As for the thousands of negatives I have in my closet, I haven't yet bought a fire-proof safe for them.

[magnoliachica]

after 2 years in japan, i moved back to the US. my photos and albums were too heavy to take on the plane so i shipped them. unfortunately, somewhere along the line the box got damaged. when i got the box, several albums, plus all their negatives, were gone.
i still feel a knot when i think of the photos i will never see again: my family's visit, an amazing road trip with my friend; a trip to southern japan; replete with a steaming volcano; a snow festival...
i feel a bit ashamed to care so much about something so material, but photos are more than just pieces of paper... they're extensions of ourselves.