When Video Games Apply to Photography Work Too.
If you're like me and love to play video games, congratulations! We are now friends! I'm sure at one point you've heard and experienced a very important mission: SAVE. YOUR. GAME.
You play hours and hours fighting monsters, completing main and side quests, customizing and buffing your character's stats with the most powerful weapons and gear, and exploring a whole new world. It would be a shame for all that hard work, time, and effort to go to waste when it would just take a single moment to click "Save".
You know that gut-wrenching feeling when suddenly the power goes out. "An error has occurred." "Connection interrupted." Or how about the infamous Blue Screen of Death? And then, and ONLY THEN, you ask yourself, "...did I save the game?"
Well, the same thing goes for photography... and today, I had to come to this sinking reality.
As I uploaded 2 new albums onto the website earlier today, I wanted to gain access to the files kept on my external hard-drive to make note of the backlog I want to work on in the next few weeks. I've attempted to work on this backlog - which dates back to at least 3 years now - over the last few months. With my heavy work load, it made it almost impossible to even gather the will and want to open my laptop. Today was one of the days that I intentionally set aside to buckle down and get to work, and I was excited to see how my work progressed over the years.
When I clicked on the folders, I noticed that many of the files were there, but I could not preview or open them. Normally, there would be an image as a preview to what the file contains, but instead it has the icon supposedly for either Preview (if you are a Mac user) or a logo to Lightroom or Photoshop. When you click on the file to open, either the file would not appear anywhere at all, or if I open up my Adobe apps, it would be unrecognizable. Clearly, the files are there, and yet at the same time... they aren't. This frustrated me immensely even to a point of desperation. There has to be a way of accessing the files, right?
After many weeks searching Google, Reddit articles, YouTube tutorials, and asking many photographer friends, it was today of all days that I had the sinking reality that my files would never be accessible to me again. Many years of memories and collaborations, some purchased by my friends in exchange for my work... That same gut-wrenching feeling when you get a GAME OVER or realizing that you didn't save your last gameplay? Yup. Right on the gil. and then some.
It was a hard lesson to not be so reliant on having one main place to save your work. From what I have learned in my search for answers, it was best to save all your work on various places. Having this website as well as my Instagram and Facebook pages have been helpful so far. Google Drive is very common for a lot of photographers I know, and the subscription for storage is a fairly reasonable price. Another option I am considering is getting a few hard drives to back up all of my work.
An addition to these options, one habit I plan to implement is a routine on how I process my work: from uploading my photos from memory cards onto the external hard drives and other save sources, to work through my editing ,and uploading my work right away. While I still have my busy schedule (taking care of my family, walking dogs, and my relationship enhancement business), I put this business as a priority too. Therefore I will implement time and effort to make it happen so that mistakes like this don't happen again.
And for those whose photos I have potentially lost, if you are reading this and regardless of the status of resolving this situation, I formally say onto you here... I am so very sorry that this happened. For many of you it took a lot of time, money, effort, and even courage for you to not only come to me to support my work, but ultimately be in front of the camera to express yourself in such a way that you were not able to express before. I have been in your shoes, so I totally get where you all are coming from, most especially in the feeling of disappointment that I have, in some way, failed you. It is possible that some of you may not have the same outfit or we may not have the same locations that we did our collaborations, but I want to make it up to you by being an even better person and photographer for you as I can be. Let's work together to get there!
You guys have no idea how many times I saved this particular entry so I can share this with you! If you read all the way to the end, thank you so much for hearing my heart. It is hard to admit when you made a mistake, but it's even harder to make something better once it's lost. So we're going to start a new file today for a "New Game" in my journey, and let's make it a great one! Don't worry, I'll have plenty of save slots along the way while I'm at it too.
With love,
xoxo Jenni
P.S. Also, for any one who is more tech-savvy and knowledgeable in this particular field, please feel free to contact me at ateliereikoshop@gmail.com and share your insights! There may be some techniques I have yet to know of or consider, so please let me know if you can help. :)
