Real and shadow birch tree, Zurich, 2010
When I recently wanted to prepare the above photograph for printing, I could not find it anymore and realized that I had deleted it unintentionally. This can of course happen very quickly. The photograph may have been still selected when I clicked on other photographs that I wanted to delete from within lightroom or I accidentally marked it as "rejected" (in my workflow, I regularly delete everything marked as "rejected").
Luckily, I also regularly backup our entire hard drive and the disappeared photograph could indeed be restored from a backup taken a couple of months ago. So I really encourage all of you to implement a regular and complete backup strategy. Simply mirroring content on two separate drives is not enough. Whatever you delete accidentally is gone on both discs. I hear of many people who have no backup strategy whatsoever and I cannot help but wonder how it is possible to be so naive. Even a thorough backup schedule is no guarantee that you will never loose data, but a few very simple steps can make your precious photographs and data a lot more secure. If you have no backup strategy, buy an external hard drive immediately and start backing up your data!
The photograph shown here, which I luckily recovered, belongs to the light and shadow gallery and is a composition that I like very much. I came by this birch on a photo bike ride and was immediately captivated by the combination of the real black and white tree trunk with the shadowed foliage on the wall behind.
This photograph is also an ethical riddle: In the above photograph, you will discern an "M" inscribed on the trunk, which is removed (at least partly) in the version below. I am still undecided if I find it justified to remove such "thorns in my side" or not. On one hand, I think that the content of photographs should not be manipulated. On the other hand, the writing on the trunk does slightly disturb me. The best solution is to keep my eyes open for a better composition with an untouched trunk. Do you have an opinion on removing "thorns" as in this photograph?
I hope you enjoy, wish you a nice day and a good week.
Florian.
"Manipulated" real and shadow birch tree, Zurich, 2010
