This morning I received this email from a client and faithful blog reader. She has a important message for each of you! Almost every month we received a call or inquiry from people who have used other photographers and when they went back to replace damaged images - the photographer had not saved any of their files. Other’s call because their photographers hard drive has failed or they have accidentally erased or misplaced important images and they seek our advice. Even many of you have told me that your personal hard drives have failed or you have accidentally erased important images you have taken of your children and family.
Even though there are no industry standards - we feel as your families’ portrait artist we have a professional responsibility to maintain your files as long as we feasibly can. In the event of some personal tragedy, like the story you are about to read, we will have you covered. Maintaining digital and film files requires a tremendous amount of effort, space and expense. It is one of our differences that we feel is well worth the investment. You be the judge:
“Lori,
We received some devastating news over the weekend, but praise God everyone is o.k. and got out 
alive.
My Mother and Step Father’s house burned down Saturday.
They were home having a cup of coffee in the kitchen.
My Mom had been taking down her Christmas decorations and was still in her p.j.s. They heard a loud whirling noise coming from the garage, which is right by the kitchen.
My step father got up and opened the door to the garage and flames shot in the house. He ran outside and tried to open the garage door to get my Mother’s car out, as it had a full tank of gas. The fire was so bad already that he couldn’t even get in the garage.
He ran back in to get my little’s sisters pug dog out.
He found the dog and by the time he made it back out, the entire house was on fire. Luckily my sister was at work at the time.
They live so far out in the country in Kentucky that it took the fire department 30 minutes to get there.
They have determined that it was the refrigerator in the garage that started the fire.
Everyone is doing ok now. You can imagine how traumatized everyone is. My Mom didn’t even have shoes on and she had to stand there all that time, unable to do anything to stop it. She is so strong though. Her strength is inspiring really. They also had good insurance through State Farm and are being taken care of by our community. I will be traveling back as soon as my Mom says “Go.” She says she will need an inspirational visit from Grant as soon as she catches her breath.
Despite this disaster, there are so many things we are praising today! Most importantly, that they are ok and that it didn’t happen when they were sleeping. I am sure they wouldn’t have made it out. Their bedroom is directly above the garage and is now nothing but a pile. The smoke would have been enough to succumb them before they even noticed the fire.
Amazingly, many of my mother’s heirloom cookbooks survived. Although the kitchen is no longer standing, their crazy big 1980’s microwave fell over on top of all her cookbooks and protected most of them. They are water damaged and charred, but they were salvageable.
Also, a chest of our family snapshots in the piano room were ok. water damaged, but ok. Remarkable, they were in the ONE corner of the house that the fire did not touch.
The most amazing thing, miraculous when you see the attached photo, is what happened next.
When my mother visited in November, she had intended to bring all of my baby photos with her to show me how much Grant looked like me as a child. Unfortunately, she had forgot them in the back of her car when she got to the airport. She had been driving around with them back there ever since. When they pulled my Mother’s mangled car from the garage, she was devastated, knowing that those photos were in the back of her car, stored in a plastic bag. Well, an angel was with those photos, because found beneath her melted gym bag, was the bag of photos! The photos were not even damaged. Not even the zip lock bag was melted. When you look at the photos of her Envoy, you will not believe me.
Our family photos are so important to us- where do you think I get it from. And despite losing everything, we have a good amount of our family photos and priceless cookbooks that were my great-grandmother’s, grandmothers and great-great aunts. We are so blessed and amazed at the existence of these items.
The photos I had purchased of Grant Kenneth, which were on the mantle, are of course gone and I want to replace these for her. She had a few at her work, so I just need to reorder her a few.
Although I still have copies of these too, it means so much to know that you still have these images as well.
To know that I can just contact you and have these replaced is such a comfort. You are like an angel safe deposit box! Please tell all your clients to store family snap shots in a safe place. It is such a hard lesson to have to learn.
Talk to you soon. Just let me know when you get a chance about my order. No big rush right now. They are staying in a camper on their property as of now. So if I get them in a couple of months, that would be fine.
Take care,
SR”
???????? ????? ???????? 
your family is rarely all together…
Happy Birthday Blog! When I launched this blog last year I had no idea how popular it would become. Thanks to you in just one short year my blog has become one of the most widely read photography blogs in the world! Is the internet amazing or what? I really appreciate all of your comments and suggestions. Yes I know many of you are addicted and I promise to make next year's entries even more touching and exciting. Hope to see all of you in the studio SOON!