Violated

While we were at church today our home was broken into and we were robbed. They weren't here long and didn't take much, but the two minutes it is estimated they spent in our home, cost us a lot. In terms of monetary loss, the biggest hit was to my photography business. They took my laptop with all my photo shoots on it, my external hard drive (which was sitting next to the laptop and being used to back up all my photo shoots) , my camera, and my lens. On the laptop was the files from all my photo shoots, all the photography templates I've bought sinse I started my business to design albums, cards, and blog boards, all the photography programs I've purchased, the actions, the brushes, the photoshop plug ins, my logos, all my branding materials, all my marketing materials, basically everything that I have poured my heart and soul into over the last 9 months to create Shamalea Photography. I have nothing. I am going to have to redesign everything from packing invoices to business cards to pricing guides and brochures. I am sick, and overwhelmed, and devastated just thinking about it.
What makes me more sick and devastated are the phone calls that I am going to have to make tomorrow to several of my clients. A handful of my shoots were safely uploaded with full resolution files to an online gallery/storage site so those I still have access to, but most of them are gone to me and my clients forever. I have been so busy that I have only been posting online galleries for mini shoots and clients who live out of town and can't do proofing sessions with me. All the other shoots I just keep on the lap top and backed up on my external hard drive. I have had this nagging voice in the back of head advising me to back up my back up and down load all my files to the online gallery for safe keeping. The voice reasoned that I'm paying for the service anyway so I should use it and what happens if there is a fire or something? In the end it got moved down on the to do list because it is time consuming and I was lulled into a false sense of security with the external hard drive. Now me and my clients are paying the price for ignoring that little voice.
Personally, I am reeling at the loss of all my family photos. Every event, every special moment, every mile stone, from the last year was carefully captured and preserved on that laptop. The other day I was at Costco and noticed their coupon for 9 cent 4x6's and thought to myself that I should just print the over 1000 family pictures that I have stored on the computer then hire my friend to put them all into albums. I went to bed with a smile on my face imagining sitting down with my kids and looking at family photo albums. I will be suffering the loss of my maternity photos, the photos of the kids meeting their new baby sister for the first time, the new born, 3 mo and 6 mo photos of Danali, the pictures of all of Ell's stunts over the last year, the pictures of Caden playing on his first soccer team and going to his first day of school, the pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes, the pictures of them playing in the pool all summer long, all the family vacations, the outings, the funny everyday little adventure that make our lives so colorful, for a long time. I really don't think that I will be getting over that loss ever.
I feel like a huge piece of me has been taken. Professionally I am bust until I rebuild. My camera and lens are gone along with my whole professional identity. But my sense of professional loss goes so much deeper than that. There is the pain that I will be causing my clients in losing their photos, which makes me sick to my stomach, but there is also this sense of losing my art. I don't really know how to vocalize this, but every photo that I brand with my name gets a little part of of me. Photography is my art form. Each photograph is unique and special to me. I capture the image in the lighting and at the angle that I feel will best represent the subject and then I edit each image until it looks and feels just right. They are portraits of other people, but I still feel a sense of artistic pride and ownership when I look at the images. They are gone.
My personal loss is what is keeping me up blogging at 1am. When Danali asks why there are no pictures of her until she is nearly one, I will recall this day. When Ella wants to know what she looked like after she cut her own hair, I will recall this day. When Caden wants to see pictures of the time he was licked by a Buffalo at the Olympic game farm, I will recall this day. When I wonder why I started checking my windows and doors before going to bed at night, I will recall this day. It is the day that my family was violated.