Today's lesson for me is the beauty of technology has a flip side which is the fragility of technological materials. 

To save space on my laptop computer I took 532 of my favorite photos from 2007 off my computer and another 400 plus of 2008.  I copied them on to a new compact disk using all the standard procedures I always follow.  The 2008 disk was perfect so I copied it onto my Personal Images backup hard drive.  No problem.  All is good in the world yes?  Of course I believed that, logically the 2007 disk would be fine too.  Days later when I went to transfer these 532 pictures to the hard drive the computer said the files were unreadable and none of them were usable.  For about two minutes my heart was racing, my blood pressure was high and I was ready to scream.  Fortunately, I had not deleted the pictures off my laptop.  But guess where they were sitting...in my Recycle Bin folder.  I recovered them but my heart is still pounding.

The photos can not bring back the departed or make all my special still life floral arrangements come alive but they certainly are a part of me; who I am as a person and as an artist.  I felt physically wounded at the thought of losing these photos.

This image is one of  my 532 favorites from 2007 that I would like to keep because of the special moment in time it was for me. 

It was a beautiful picture perfect summer day in northern Minnesota where I was setting up an outdoor portrait session with the wildflowers I had just collected during my morning walk.  No it won't win any prizes but I would feel pained to lose it.  So today's lesson is to enjoy our digital technology but don't delete any folders until you've confirmed backup.