In my story today about the Sheila Weller book "Girls Like Us," and Joni Mitchell's years in Detroit, we ran some beautiful black and white photos taken by a Detroit News photographer at the Mitchells' Ferry Street apartment in 1966.

I always like to credit the individual photographer in these cases and not just say "Detroit News Archive" -- these guys were great shooters and deserve the shout out, but to do that I'd have to have the original print with the photographer's name stamped on the back. Alas, those prints were stolen from the Detroit News library some time in the last 12 years.

The Reuther Library at Wayne State, which is supposed to have negatives of all of our old photos, said "nope" when we asked if they could find any.

The reason we were able to run the photos -- and be sure to see the ones in our online photo gallery -- is because Joni's ex Chuck Mitchell got copies of the photos at the time the story ran, and thankfully, he kept them. Chuck sent on digital copies to the book author Sheila Weller, who sent them on to us -- figuring, after all, that they were News photos to begin with.

"Ah, the amazing digital age," Chuck emailed me. Yes, because digital technology brought our photos back where they belonged. Thanks to Chuck for preserving those shots, which we'll keep now under digital lock and key.