The day my cat killed my hard drive

The other night I worked late working on my new business cards and some new marketing materials. I was just working away and excited at the progress I had made. I was loving my designs. I was feeling good. I was texting my friend about a cool studio sample I was going to get and in the middle of all of that bliss... I heard SPLAT. I stopped and looked around to see what SPLAT was. I looked down and I see a pair of innocent looking yellow eyes looking at me. It was my cat Annabelle looking at me. She was sitting on my computer tower. She is never on my tower. I looked past Annabelle to see my external hard drive laying on the floor. My heart stopped. My husband asked what the noise was and I told him it was the hard drive. At this time I am still calm. My hard drives have lived on top of my towers for years... my cats have lived with me for years. Not once has this happened. I hear the hard drive making a really funny noise. I jump up and grab it and set it up right. I go to my computer and click on a file and the files are starting to look a little funny and I panic so I unplug it. At this point I am not so calm and my husband comes into the office and I am telling him I think I am going to lose ALL my pictures on the hard drive. I am starting to freak out. He has me plug it back in. It makes a funny noise and wont come back on. At this point the tears start. I had about 2 years worth of photos on it. Ones I had not delivered yet. I sat in my computer chair. My husband sat silently in the chair in the office and I just cried.

A little back story.. the cats the past few weeks have been pretty destructive and have broken several things of mine so this was my tipping point. So I CRIED annnnd CRIED.

Once I calmed down I realized that my files were backed up on Lightroom. They were all cataloged and were not lost. I will have to export them all again but I have them... except for certain special pictures....

Photo Credit: Jessi Field

My WEDDING PICTURES. I was in the shower the day after the incident feeling better about it when I realized my WEDDING PICTURES were on that hard drive. I just saved this one from Facebook. I only saved 50 to Facebook out of the few hundred that I had. So here comes panic round two!

I was thinking to myself I will have to reach out to my photographer, I will have to see if its possible to download them again. Hopefully she still has them. I would be more than happy to pay a fee. Then I was thinking, what if it was not possible to get them... I had to remind myself that while it is upsetting the whole gallery was lost... at least I had printed SOOOO many of them. I had made a gorgeous album. That I had tangible copies. I knew that if my digital copies were lost my wedding story was not lost. I made sure they were still preserved.

I have changed my living room, but I have framed professional quality prints of my wedding pictures that tells the story.

(Sorry for the cell phone quality video)

I invested in albums for our parents and us. They are gorgeous and sturdy. I have looked through it more than I have my digital gallery. I have sat with my husband, my children, my family and looked through it reliving the day.

My photographer said she could send me a link. I am so thankful, so grateful. I know though that if that was not the case.. my wedding pictures were NOT lost. I have preserved them.

This is why my model of business is so IMPORTANT to me. We never know what can happen to those digital files. I was able to pull that wedding picture off of Facebook but will it always be around? Will we always be able to run back to our photographers to retrieve lost files? I will be investing in cloud storage but will that always be reliable? I print my kids pictures every year. I want them to have something tangible to show their children. We do not know where technology will take us... I promise you the printed portrait will NEVER go out of style. They will always be our family's most treasured heirlooms. Invest in it.

The first time I had portraits done of Aideen she was a couple of months old. She is thirteen now. I took her to Walmart when they still had a portrait studio. I made a whole $6.75 an hour at my job then. I couldn't afford much, but I knew I needed to document her new life. I went in the wonderful lady took the pictures. They are very much different than how I photograph today but I still love those photos. There were maybe 5 poses. I had only planned on picking one. That's all I could afford right? Well that is not how it went at all. I fell in love with each and every one. I ended up going with one of the largest packages! It was like $200 something it was a lot for my $6.75 hr wages. It was important to me though. I was getting wall art. I was getting gifts for the grandparents. I got all 5 poses. I was able to pay payments! It was important to me so I invested and found a way to make it happen.

As time went on and my financial situation got better and the photography industry changed I still never wavered on what was important to me when booking a photographer. I booked based on style and quality. If they were a little higher than my budget, I saved for it. They were worth it. It was quite common for me to book a photographer that charged twice as much as I did. I did not believe in myself at that time as much as I believed in them. I have never looked at my family portraits, my wedding portraits and regretting spending what I have on those portraits. It was an investment and what I got out of it was so rewarding.

My experiences as a photographer and consumer has built this business. I offer what I believe in. Experiences are important. Tangible heirlooms are important.