[Steven Zahm]

@ Dirk

re: that folder is empty on my site, but photos are visible in Connections. Anywhere else they could be?

No, the only location Connections reads images files from is:
../wp-content/uploads/connections-images/

Unless you site is a multi site install of WordPress in which case you wold have to look under the correct blog ID uploads folder.

re: Will also look into software that makes a remote folder look like it is a local folder to Windows, similar to what DropBox does.

I use to use this a lot and it work quite well. Now with high speed internet… I image it would work even better.

http://www.netdrive.net/