Worth waiting for

Would you like to see the very best picture I took at that wedding I told you about? Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? You would?

Okay, here it is:

Obviously, I am joking. This picture cannot possibly be the best picture that I took at that wedding, because it is a picture of a slug. Granted, it might be a nice picture of a slug, but it is still a slug. If this was the best picture I took at a wedding, I would not let the bride and groom pay me. (Unless they really loved slugs or something.)

No, no, I have very many much more lovely pictures from Zeb and Sarah’s wedding—photos that they have not yet been able to see, even though I promised to deliver them last Monday.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Erin, isn’t that highly irresponsible and unprofessional of you to be late with a couple’s wedding photos?” And the answer is, “Yes, it is.”

However, this brings me to a fun little story called, “Backing up your data will make your bones stronger and your eyes more vibrant and your teeth whiter—also, it will save your life and prevent you from looking unprofessional in front of the entire world.”

Now, before anybody freaks out, I should mention the fact that I have fastidiously backed up the originals of every single wedding I have shot. Never, at any point in this story, were the originals from Zeb and Sarah’s wedding in danger. So that’s one teeny-weeny sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, there are other things you can lose in the event of a disaster, such as, oh… three+ days of work on processing photos. You see, Adobe Lightroom, as wonderful of a program as it is, has this little thing—it doesn’t like its catalog to be messed with. It is very particular about how it reads the data held in its catalog (meaning all the alterations I have made to any photos within Lightroom), and if it gets bumped into or jostled, well… it gets… moody.

And that is exactly what happened on Monday afternoon when my computer, just as I had finished my work in Lightroom and was moving into Photoshop, rebooted itself for no apparent reason. This is just the sort of jostling that makes Lightroom grumpy—so naturally, when my computer came back on it stomped off into a corner and refused to speak to its catalog anymore.

This is the point in the story at which I had to lie on my bed for half an hour with a hot pack on my forehead in order not to hyperventilate. But after I got done doing that, Dad and I poked around online to see if there was any way we could talk Lightroom back into showing me the edits I had made to my photos.

What we found was a savior—a man who works at Adobe and who had offered to take in people’s injured Lightroom catalogs and show them how to reconcile themselves with the program. By the end of the evening, he had emailed me back my catalog, right as rain. Unfortunately, though, I had lost the whole rest of my day to this adventure; and seeing as today and yesterday and the day before were all already filled with plans, this rebooting incident has set me back considerably on Zeb and Sarah’s photos.

So, kids, as you can probably already guess, the moral of the story is: BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP. I know you don’t want to; DO IT ANYWAY. And after you’ve finished backing up? BACK UP AGAIN. Because you never know when one of your programs is going to throw in the towel.

The end.

One more thing… here’s a little story that I hope will make you giggle as much as it made me:

I just recently ordered some test prints from this company, because I am planning on using them to fulfill print orders for my clients.

The UPS tracking information said that they were supposed to arrive yesterday afternoon. The UPS truck often does not reach our house until late, though, so I knew I probably had a wait ahead of me.

At one point in the afternoon, I wandered listlessly by my Dad’s doorway and, looking for all the world like I was horribly distraught, sighed, “Dad… I really wish my prints would come.”

…

Then, as I heard the words replayed in my head, I laughed and groaned, “Not like that!”

Dad just looked amused and said, “Someday, someday.”

(P.S. All kidding aside, the prints are awesome. I’m really excited to offer these to my clients.)

Posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 9:27 pm.
Belongs with: Photo Things, Freaking Frustrating Things.
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