Carmen Returns, But I Get a Scare
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| A shot from one of Carmen's newest sets. |
The blog below was originally published in Soles of Silk's Column section. It was archived and then republished here in 2016.
It has been a little over two years since Carmen and I have met to do new photos for Soles of Silk. Her thread about her posing again on the site's forum always saw periodic comments and wishes of a Carmen return. Well, if you looked at this week's coming soon photos you will already have noticed that she has finally posed again, bringing her "little pitters" back, as she called them in an e-mail earlier this week.
You don't know how excited I was to finally be able to get Carmen back in front of my camera. She always was one of my best female friends, but over recent years we grew apart somewhat. I still love the little gal to death and always have a good time whenever I'm with her, it is just we don't see each other like we used to.
Well, on Tuesday I picked Carmen up for this much anticipated shoot. I had picked to do her first photo sets at a park several miles north of where I live. The park has many historic country style buildings, such as a blacksmith building, barns, etc. Planning accordingly, Carmen brought a really cute one-piece dress and wore knee high boots on her little feet. She looked perfect for the settings I saw online when looking at the park's web site.
It didn't take us too long to get to the park, but along the way I made sure to buy some more camera batteries as the ones I've been using are losing their charge and I wanted to make sure I didn't run out if we took a bit of time. But once at the park we headed off down a trail that we thought... okay, I thought, headed to a covered bridge. After walking over a mile down the wrong trail, we decided to come back to the main area of the park and do some photos.
The entire time along the trail Carmen told me her feet were really sweaty as she didn't have socks on. Yeah, such a tease, huh? I wasn't sure she knew some of us foot guys like that, but I told her that some of us indeed do. She smiled and said it a few more times on the walk back.
Once we got back to main park area, I decided to shoot by the blacksmith shop as there was lots of old background to use that would just rock along with the way she was dressed. So sitting back, Carmen began to unzip those boots (all on camera of course). I'd be lying if I'd say I didn't smell her feet a little sitting in front of them. I'd also be lying if I didn't admit that I got close to them on purpose. They were very damp and warm as I brushed some fuzz from the inside of the boots off her soles a couple times. I playfully sniffed my fingers afterward and she laughed. Ahh, the perks of this "job." They did smell nice though.
We ended up doing a set's worth of photos and then I switched into black and white mode. About a month ago I saw some black and white photos Lauryn did of herself using her camera's timer function and she inspired me to do some artsy photos again. I had Kellie do some Monday when I took some photos with her and I wanted Carmen to do some too. So we did a few dozen awesome black and white shots - all non-foot based.
After the artsy fartsy photos were done, Carmen changed into another set of clothes with a bandana through her hair - which I loved! Nearby there was construction on a bridge in the park and we decided to do some dirty foot shots with all the construction equipment and signs in the background. Dirty foot fans will enjoy this set when it is posted.
That about ended the day for photos. We headed back toward town and grabbed a bite eat and then I dropped her off and rushed home to upload the photos. I was so excited to see how they came out, but then my heart dropped to the floor.
I inserted the camera card into my card reader and was told the card was corrupt and couldn't be read. I pulled it out and stuck it back in to make sure it was aligned and all that good stuff. It was all the way in and I got the same message. I took it back out, pushed it into the camera and checked the review menu. All the photos and video clips were still on the card. I tried one more time and was asked to format the card this time. I clicked no and jumped over to the Macintosh. Macs are so much more forgiving with data from my experiences, so I was praying that it would read the card. It didn't.
At this point in time I was really upset as I thought I had lost the photos we spent all day taking. I tried my Windows PC one more time and now I was told the card was empty. Tried the camera again and also told the card was empty. Now it was done. Those photos were lost!
I called Carmen and told her. She was quite upset, as was I. She was so excited to see how they came out and was really excited to be in the black and whites too - all of which were lost. Or so I thought...
Being so upset I posted some threads on the Wu's Feet Links Forum about my problems and people were all posting how bummed they were for me. Then a shining light! A forum member posted a link to a site that sold a program that would possibly read corrupt files and data on all kinds of disks/cards. It was worth a try, even though I didn't hold out much hope as the computer and camera both said the card was empty.
After downloading the program, which is called Bad Copy Pro, I ran it and low and behold, it was finding files on the disk that were the general size of the typical .jpg photos on the camera card. It took some time to complete, but it also found a video clip at the end, which was the last file I had saved to the card. I clicked to preview one of the photos and there it was! Carmen's moist little feet fresh out of those warm boots looking right at me. I went back to the site and purchased the registration code and now I am the proud owner of all those photos and videos I thought I lost! After being so upset and ready to go back and shoot the same sets over again on Wednesday, now I am one happy photographer who still gets to spend another day with Carmen doing a second day of photos that I had planned on doing anyhow.
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