That "Oh No" moment

Sorry I haven't been keeping up to date with my 30 day challenge posts but I recently realised that I have been importing all of my pictures to my C drive and this was causing Picasa to work rather harder than it should so I spent several days moving over 30,000 photos from my C drive to my external hard drive!!!! One folder at a time!!!

I read lots of advice on the Picasa forum and am hoping that I have done everything correctly, I have now set Picasa to import directly to my external hard drive but this was not before I had my "Oh No" moment.....

Since transferring all the files to the external hard drive I have been trying to remember to change the import drive location on Picasa before pressing the import button so that all my photographs are imported directly to the external hard drive but on this particular day I forgot.

I realised my mistake as soon as I clicked the import button which meant that all my photos would be imported to my C drive so do you know what I did I clicked the cancel button!!!! I'm not sure what made me do it but I did!!

My "Oh No" had happened not only had I cancelled the import but I had also ticked the delete everything on the card box.

Almost everything was gone, the only photos showing were about ten pictures all of which I had imported a couple of days before so I already had them in Picasa.
I was so cross with myself you wouldn't believe it.....and I honestly thought that was it -  I'd lost all my photos.
My camera not only had that days photos of our trip out with friends to the local woods but it also had photos from several days before some of which I really wanted to keep.
There was only one thing for it I trawled the Picasa forum yet again and found out that I might be able to recover my photos from the memory card as long as I didn't take any more photos on it.
The way to do this would be to use a recovery program, there are lots of different companies offering recovery programs and after much deliberation I plumped for Recuva.
I nervously downloaded the program to my computer and attached the camera via the usb cable and set the program to scan and waited.
Amazingly there they were my 217 photos recovered in a jiffy.
My "Oh No" moment was now a "Oh Yes!" moment.
I quickly moved them to the external hard drive and apart from three photo's that didn't get fully recovered I had all my photos safely ensconced once more in Picasa!!!

This has been a hard lesson to learn but learn it I have...and after reading another Picasa forum post I now realise that I can set the import location permanently to my external hard drive, which I have now done. I also only tick the delete copied pictures too which should ensure that this doesn't happen again, but if it ever does then I know that there may be hope in the name of Recuva.

Sorry this has been a word heavy post, normal photography blogging shall resume shortly........

30 day Photo Challenge - 5/30 - 6/30 - 7/30

Day 5/30 - From a High Angle

couldn't resist getting a shot from the top of the slide in our local park!!!

have to confess though that this was the little slide and not the big one as

a) it was quite windy and I didn't want to get blown off the top of the slide

b) I looked pretty odd as it was climbing the small slide/climbing frame without a child of my own nearby, imagine the strange looks I would have got if I had climbed the big slide!!!

and

c) not a pretty sight if I had slid down the slide and got stuck!!!!

 only a little tweak with this shot - changed to black and white and soft focus added.

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Day 6/30 - From a Low Angle

I had a couple of ideas for this one today but when I finally uploaded my photos decided to plump for this shot of one of Tomas' trucks in the garden...

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Day 7/30 - Fruit - An Apple

Take one apple, place it on the windowsill, snap away until you are pleased with your shot, then crop and upload!!!

Pop over to A Kitten Called Betty to see more photographs of these themes!

30 Day Challenge - 4/30 - Something Green

I've been sewing today whilst Tomas has been at pre-school so I thought it only fitting that I incorporate that into my photograph for today, so here is a snapshot of my green threads.

To see different interpretations of " Something Green" pop over to
A Kitten Called Betty

30 day challenge - 3/30 - Clouds

The glorious weather today meant that we had masses of low level cloud this morning making the sky completely grey and beautiful blue skies this afternoon with no clouds at all.

Not to be defeated I popped out into the garden after dinner and managed to get a few shots of some clouds. There were three clouds in particular that looked pretty unusual so I snapped away at different angles, my first impression was that the cloud in the bottom right corner did in fact look like a bird but it just needed something a little bit extra.

Picnik has a doodle thingy so I added some eyes, beaks and feet and found this super quote from Lewis Carroll....

What do you think????

30 day Photo Challenge - 2/30 - What I Wore Today

It was a sorcher of a day yesterday so clothing was keep to a minimum - beige linen trousers and a white vest top
draped over the chair in my bedroom.

To see more photos of "What I wore Today" visit
A Kitten Called Betty

Paper Mill Lock

On Friday Ruth and I decided to take the kids and our cameras down to Paper Mill Lock in Little Baddow, a chance for the kids to have a run around and for us to take some pictures.

Here are some of mine from our little jaunt.....

The sun was reflecting beautifully off the water at the lock and I tried to capture this.

When we first arrived my two played "lets see how many people we can make wave to us", they didn't do too bad at all!

The water on the other side of the lock had a layer of algae on the top - too tempting for some!!!

Lots of the boats had stained glass doors and windows - roses to match the canal art.

A wonderful evening boat ride - lucky for some.

The children enjoyed rock throwing - en masse!

and tree climbing,

whilst I had the chance to catch some reflections

and the pretty lockhouse

Our walked finished with some rather cold but enjoyable paddling

I enjoyed myself and I think they did too!

A new Photo Challenge

I've joined another photo challenge over on a facebook, A Kitten Called Betty is a new community page that has been set up and yesterday saw the first day of a 30 day challenge.

1/30 - Self Portrait

I spent some of yesterday afternoon playing around with self portraits, never being one to like having photo taken I tried to think of a few ideas that didn't involve you seeing all my face!!! I tried spoons, reflections and just plain hiding but finally settled on this idea of seeing a blurred me behind a hand. I have a similar photo of Tomas, less posed much direct response of having too many photos taken) and thought it would be a gentle introduction to me!

I took this picture on my Nikon D40x with my new 35mm lens using a 10 second timer, it took a little time to get right with just the right amount of focus on my hand and depth of field to blur my face. That left just a little bit of editing so I changed it to black and white and added soft focus.

If you fancy joining in then just pop over to A Kitten Called Betty and upload your photos for all to see!!!