It will happen to you...
As photographers we have all experienced it, lost pictures.
Lost pictures have been a fact of life since the dawn of photography. William Henry Jackson lost a month's worth of plates to a mule with bad footing. Most of Robert Capa's D-Day images were lost to a darkroom accident.
My moment happened on assignment for National Geographic when a day's worth of shooting disappeared from a cf card. The thing that separated me from Jackson and Capa -besides their overwhelming talent- is that I had an ace in the hole. My assistant Geof Bowie took the card and disappeared into his hotel room. 2 hours later Geof and the pictures were back.
Losing a day, or week or month of work is scary, but now my entire archive, 15+ years of work is digital. Making sure that the archive is safe, backed up and accessible is a major issue.
Geof now runs Think Fixed a Mac technical support company that advises creative professionals about technical issues. Every Friday he will post here about living with computers and pictures.
Maybe if we all listen to Geof we can avoid lost pictures.
-Stephen Alvarez
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