U E

I spent two-and-a-half hours at the Enderis Park Dog Fair this past Saturday, photographing the event at the request of my friend, Georgianna, one of the event planners. It was an enjoyable day, being introduced to various breeds of dogs and their owners, watching the animals run, jump, sniff, make paw-print art and bob for hot dogs. The weather was warmish and sunny and I nearly filled my 512mb memory card by the end of the afternoon.

I came home and downloaded everything, worked another two to three hours in Photoshop, tweaking the lighting, cropping, burning, dodging and tossing out rejects. I then burned everything to a CD, made myself a copy, and dropped the finished project off at Georgianna’s house. I was rather proud of myself for having gotten it all done in one day, and was also very happy with a good number of the shots – that beautiful white husky head shot showing one brown eye and one blue, the profile of a handsome blue heeler hound and those stinking adorable black schnoodle puppies that were for sale.

She gratefully accepted the disk and called later to thank me. She then asked about the other photos. “What other photos?” I replied.
“Well, you said you had over 100, but there’s only 47 on the disk.”
“Oh, no. I’ll have to check my hard drive and I”ll get back to you.”

Gone. All but 47 shots. Oh, the sick, sinking feeling in my stomach. I sat at my desk and thought it over. I realized my mistake. I usually download into a folder called “Recent Downloads” and then after working up each photo, I save them into their proper folder, whether Door County, Havenwoods, Rusty Junk, Our Family, etc. Then I go back to the organizer and delete all those that I have worked up. This time I had created a new folder at the time of download and entitled it “Enderis Park Dog Fair.” I downloaded directly into that folder and worked them all up in that same folder. Since they were not my photos, per se, I did not rename most of them, but left them in whatever numbered name the computer had given them. The ones in which I recognized people or animals personally, I renamed – 47 of them. When I edit and rename a file, I close it and then delete the original, especially when it’s not my work that I am going to print. When I am all done, I leave the editor window, return to the organizer and delete all the recently downloaded files because they are now saved into a new folder someplace else on the hard drive. What I did differently this time was that I didn’t rename most of the files, and I didn’t move them to a folder other than the one I had directly downloaded to. I didn’t think about this scenario when I returned to the organizer at the end of my editing session and deleted all the recently downloaded “originals,” which were, of course, the same files I had just worked up. I had also chosen to delete the originals from the memory card after downloading, so they weren't even in the camera any more. Oh, what a sick, sick feeling.

I had to call Georgianna back and tell her the awful news. I went back online and googled, “How to recover deleted files.” I downloaded some software from PC Tools called File Recover, installed it and ran it immediately, pushing aside all the fears of being totally hacked by some nasty virus or identity theft subprogram. It ran through my entire C drive and scanned for deleted files. The program kept at it for hours. I couldn’t stay awake long enough, but woke around 2:45 am to find it had finally finished. There were over 30,000 files found from the last five years since I got this computer. I sorted through and narrowed my selections down to only those of September 16, 2006 and only those of jpeg format. I pushed the restore button and was given a warning message: “Files may only be restored using a registered version of this program. Click here to purchase online.” What choice did I have? I went online and paid $29.95 for a one year subscription to the program. I pushed the restore button again and it quickly did the job. Unfortunately, all those jpegs were from my daughter’s disk that I had downloaded and burned onto a CD for her the same day. Only five were listed as having come out of the Enderis Park Dog Fair folder, and these showed only a pattern of green lines, totally unrecognizable as photos. Where did my work go? What a sick, sick feeling. I could cry. I cried. And it was truly all my fault. Complete user error. I feel I should be walking around with big red letters on my chest, Hester Prynne style: U E. What a stupid thing to do.