What’s the first thing you would grab in a fire (people and pets aside)? Chances are that your photographs are at the top of your list.
They are for me. Only, ever since we started using digital cameras, I haven’t actually printed most of our family photos. All of my photos for the past five or six years (I was slow to come around to digital) are on this computer.
So, when a virus attacked my computer yesterday, and it appeared that all my files had been lost, I was beside myself with fear. I had backed up some of the photos on external hard drives, but I kept the hard drives attached to my computer. The virus was therefore able to travel to them as well.
While the drives appeared to be empty when clicked on, I could see that the space on the drives was still occupied. Fortunately, four hours (and a few tears) later, I managed to retrieve the files. The virus had actually hidden them and I used a handy online tool called unhide.exe to retrieve them. Thankfully, there are benevolent computer geniuses out there to offset the evil ones. Thanks to www.bleepingcomputer.com I have my precious photos back.
What is it that makes photos so important to us? I think it’s because they unlock moments that might otherwise stay hidden in our minds. While I was looking through our family photos today, they brought back so many memories.
When my daughter was smaller, she looked like my grandmother, with her curly hair and her sparkly blue eyes. Seeing the resemblance in these photos reminded me of a time that we visited my grandmother in her nursing home one summer in Nova Scotia. My kids have always been mischievous. As we were leaving her room, Nana said, “They’re beautiful…they’re devils, but they’re beautiful.” I think she said it with appreciation, because she had a devilish streak herself.
What parent doesn’t have the photo of the kid with food on her face?
I cherish this series of photos that we took while visiting Toronto’s Kensington Market with friends. It also documents my brief (and probably ill-advised) red hair phase.
There are many much-loved photos of our visits to my parents’ cottage, where the kids play on the very beach I spent my summers on.
And water park delights.
Bicycle adventures in front of our first home.
Among my most cherished photos…those of our summer road trips to Nova Scotia.
I even caught my dad reading my Oprah magazine at the beach in Mabou. He said he had never been to that particular beach before, even though it was a stone’s throw from where he grew up. Interesting how we take travel for granted nowadays, isn’t it?
Here’s a cottage we rented in Nova Scotia one year.
And my little one enjoying her temporary home.
.jpg)
I have lots of saucy face pictures.
Now my task is to create a better system for storing my precious pics. I also want to finally print some photographic highlights and start filling up photo albums.
