© Brad Mangas
I have had this image in my archives for 2 years. Worked up just like this and saved as a small .jpg image. I was going through some of the images this morning and came across it. I seem to like it more now than when I initially worked it up. The I found a problem. Up until a year or so ago in order to save room and keep from having gigabyte after gigabyte of files full of images I’m not using, I would just make the decision to delete them. Well it just so happens this is one of the files that I had deleted, everything except this small .jpg file. Bummer, what was I thinking.
A piece of advice for all you photo hungry type. Invest in a good backup system and use it. For the last year I have had no less than 2 external hard drives in which I save everything that worth saving. That is if it is technically correct as an image it gets backed up, regardless if I think I will use it or not. Plus I use the online backup service “Mozy” for my entire image archive plus computer files. If I had started that system 2 years ago I would have this image saved as the original and be able to offer it as a print.
The not so bad side of this is, I shot this just across the street under a group of oaks 2 minutes from my front door. So with a little effort I can work on a similar type of shot. Live and learn and keep smiling. They are only mistakes if we don’t learn from them, other wise they are experiences.
