Madder than a hippo with a hernia. (rant)

[neea]

Need to blow off steam!!!!!

So I used to have this online gallery of pictures.
THOUSANDS of pictures!!!! The last 4-5 years if not more. Mostly personal pictures. Hanging out and doing silly things with my best friends, meeting new people, family vacations, first road trip with my boyfriend.

All of these pictures were on my computer until it crashed about 2 years ago. After a few hours of crying I remembered that the most important ones were still on the webpage.
Over the last two years I've copied a few onto my harddrive to use for birthday and christmas cards for my bf (I never buy xmas, bday, vday cards for him. i make 'em in photoshop).

About a month ago I find out that the server all my webpages were on had crashed. I wasn't too worried as my friend told me he was sending it away to get all the stuff on it recovered and put on a new one.

Tonight I find out that the company sent him an email basically saying 'UPS has lost your stuff and they wanna know how much it's worth plus an explanation to justify replacing it'.

This makes me so terribly angry at the digital world. This one single event may prevent me from ever buying a digital camera. Or at least using it for personal pictures. I am so beyond angry!!!

The more I go through the gallery in my head the more pictures I remember

I learned my lesson when my computer crashed to make copies on discs. However, those discs are sitting right beside my computer so if, god forbid, the house ever burnt down they'd be gone also.
My negatives on the other hand are in a fire safe box because I would seriously run INTO my burning house to get them.

It is literally tearing me apart to think of the pictures on that server.

Perhaps the gods will help UPS find it and send it home safely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Efergoh]

Well, I wish you nothing but luck, and I am sending good thoughts your way...

But, look at it as a learning experience, and try not to be too down on digital. Backups are a factof life with anything electronic. Never, ever, ever trust a 3rd party with your important files. You wouldn't store your negs at someone else's house, so why rely on a server that is not under your immediate control.

treat your digital files just as thought they were negs. If you want to have a disk near your computer for easy use, just make two copies of the disk. Put on disk with your negs in that firesafe lock box and keep the other one handy.

 

[neea]

Thank you very much for your good thoughts... they are much need. And may be needed more as I hear the grieving process sometimes gets harder with time.

I really do hate learning these lessons the hard way. I usually welcome positive education through negative experience... except when it comes to my pictures.
It doesnt matter whos server it was, it could've just as easily crashed if it was mine. I blame UPS the most, as I usually do. They often cause me all kinds of grief and has made me wear off ebay forever.
Hopefully it will show up and the files can be recovered. That's what Im hoping and praying for anyways.

I'm still mad at digital. Even if the discs were stored and never touched or scratched it will only be a matter of time before they too are obsolete (many of you cant see this happening but im sure they thought that about the 8 track too). I can only imagine now the pain of converting it all to the newest and latest gadget.
errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

[LaFoto]

Terrible news such as these or my friend's harddrive suffering a "mechanical fault" (with loads and loads and loads of unsaved material for school - she is a teacher) make me save and save more on DVD these days.

And at the same time the news are full of once more frightening news saying that storing things on CD or DVD is not going to be the ultimate choice, either. That we might become the generation of "the undocumented past", since, while records on paper - even carved into stone - have survived from back then until today, our electronic data might not survive the times simply because the reading techologies change so fast.

I must only think of my video tapes which I created back in the nineties (and those were the nineties only, a bare 10 - 15 years ago!) --- unviewable for me. The old VCR is dead, it is all DVD technology now, my tapes are magnetic tapes though and they have become un-viewable for me. All recorded memory lost (I know I could have them copied, but do you know about the COST involved :shock: ).

But this very fact needs not be discussed, it only serves as an example for how quickly recorded data can get lost in our times --- which is why I have come to the conclusion that actually you best save your best photos (still) as prints.

Which cannot be saved from a fire in the house, either ... I'd lose HEAPS of recorded memories in the case of a fire. Even if I should be able to rescue my negative files from it! But a fire is a catastrophe beyond any other.

 

[brighteyesphotos]

Sorry to hear about the frustrations. I had to giggle a little at your title though.

I wouldn't use this as an excuse why to never go digital. I fear that film cameras will become a thing of the past. Maybe not in our or our kids' lifetime but one day. After all, the early methods of photography are long gone, aren't they? I would make doubles of your CD's and make sure you have prints of the shots that mean the most to you.

Like you, a fire is my greatest fear. However, a firesafe box would not be big enough for all of my negatives and everything I want saved. After my kids, I think my cameras and my work would be the only other thing I'd go back for.

Hope your stuff turns up soon!

 

[Alex_B]

This is actually terrible

I hope there is still some hope!

This makes me so terribly angry at the digital world. This one single event may prevent me from ever buying a digital camera. Or at least using it for personal pictures. I am so beyond angry!!!

Well, but having the pictures on a server only, left the full responsibility with the person caring for that server... I would never do that.

You would not give your negatives away to some other person to care for them, would you?

BTW, it seems very strange to me if someone operates a server and does not maintain a backup, that is seriously provoking what just happened ...

Sorry to tell you all this ... mainly I still just feel with you and hope there will be some hope left! :hug::

 

[neea]

BTW, it seems very strange to me if someone operates a server and does not maintain a backup, that is seriously provoking what just happened ...

You're right. I never thought of that.
I am sure the server was maintained (no idea what this really means) but these things happen.
When my computer crashed I had never made a backup before. I got a virus that required reformatting. I asked a guy at work to look at it to see if he could remove the VIRUS... NOT THE OPERATING SYSTEM.
I'm still mad to this day that he just erased it and never even asked if there was someone I wanted to burn to disc on it.

The pics I miss the most is when me and my boyfriend took our first road trip to Banff. I had a little point and shoot digital and used that for all our fun pictures like us making faces or standing in front of huge mountains, stopping on the side of the road for a tinkle.
I used my film camera for the 'money shots'.
It should've been the other way around. If need be I could always go back to take my scenic pictures as mountains and trees dont wander very far.
But it's those fun pictures I can never take again.

If I do decide to get a digital (once my irrational thoughts of suicide subside) it will be solely for pictures without people.

My boyfriend asked me the other day if he could buy a guy safe, one with shelves so I can store my camera equipment in it. Equipment can be baught in the store. All negatives and discs will be going in there instead!!!

 

[LaFoto]

But I can hear clearly from your telling us about the photos you miss that they are imprinted in your memory ... in your head. And lets hope for the very, very best and that NOTHING is ever going to happen to THAT hard drive up there in the next ... ok, let's say: one hundred years. OK? So those pictures will actually stay with you FOREVER, in the safest of places.

 

[terri]

Sorry to hear about the frustrations. I had to giggle a little at your title though.

I wouldn't use this as an excuse why to never go digital. I fear that film cameras will become a thing of the past. Maybe not in our or our kids' lifetime but one day. After all, the early methods of photography are long gone, aren't they? I would make doubles of your CD's and make sure you have prints of the shots that mean the most to you.

Like you, a fire is my greatest fear. However, a firesafe box would not be big enough for all of my negatives and everything I want saved. After my kids, I think my cameras and my work would be the only other thing I'd go back for.

Hope your stuff turns up soon!

Just for your enlightenment: not at all! If you felt like it, you could still shoot wet plate negatives or make a daguerrotype today. It's all still out there and not too hard to learn, either. Basic film cams are a looooong ways away from extinction.

Neea, you have my sympathy! No matter what you shoot, it's an awful feeling to have someone "lose" your images like this. I'll be hoping they somehow turn up, and this will be a lesson learned without you having to lose anything!