Losing my… images!

Some days ago I discovered that I lost some of my archived images from the period 2005-2007, the first years with digital cameras.

It’s a shame for everyone of us to loose such precious material. Among them there were my original raw files of the captive breeding Ancylometes sp., something I still use into my presentations and exhibitions (thus the low res files in this post). Other ones were from my first herp tours in Europe after I took my degree on 2005, like those of Vipera ammodytes I shot in Croatia on 2007.

At first it was like missing something close to my heart, hours of work and passion gone on the wings of a bad backup or something similar. But then something new happened to me, something unusual for those who feel lost when they lose their lossless raw files (yep, I wanted to write this).

I felt alive, I felt that “ehi, there’s still time to go there and shot them once again, and even better!“.
In the past I even lost some Fuji Velvia slides for various reasons, but this was the first time I felt like this. And you know why? Because I know that they are still there for us, all these animals aren’t already extinct and they can be appreciated once more by me and my camera.
This led me to a deeper level of consciousness about me and my work of wildlife photographer: I could even loose EVERYONE of my image if I know that these animals and plants are still alive and roaming the Earth. They’re JUST IMAGES.
But by no means, we should loose the “models” of our images. 
No human artwork nor image could replace in the future the lack of a REAL horned viper, the brutal yet marvelous breeding of the giant fishing spider Ancylometes or the fluffy tail of a snow leopard. What a poor world this would be, without the thrill of a new finding into nature.

I could loose all my images for the sake of conservation.