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Photo Backups Are So Important But Hardly Anyone Does It

Today’s offering is probably one of the most important topics I could write about and it affects everyone, not just professional photographers whose clients rely on them to store their priceless images.

Keeping Your Photos Safe

This week I had a phone enquiry from potential clients who wanted newborn photography done. They just had their first child, a baby boy, and as you can imagine they were over the moon.  I started to ask them what they wanted to gain from having their son photographed, what it meant to them and what their plans were for the final photographs.

As I mentioned in a previous article knowing what you want to do with your images helps on so many levels. It makes the whole photography experience more rewarding. You can read that article here: Family Photo Wall Ideas and Tips for your Home.

The common response from parents is “I’m not sure”. They are in two minds on whether they should buy wall art for their home or just get the electronic copies of the files. It is then my job to explain the pros and cons of each option. On this particular occasion, our conversation got me thinking about people who only want to purchase the electronic files. Now I will save the discussion of why this is such a bad idea for another time but one aspect that many people do not consider is once you have your electronic files how do you safeguard those images for life?

Photo Backups

What am I talking about? Well, I’m talking about backing up your photographs so that you don’t EVER lose them.

At our studio, we have three copies of all our client’s images. They are stored on external hard drives so if one fails the images are still safe. We also go to the extreme of having one of these hard drives stored at another physical location. That way if hard drives are lost through fire, flooding or theft, there is still another copy that remains.

The practice of backing up photos should not be done by professional photographers alone. Everyone should have a photo backup strategy in place and have this done periodically. I know it’s hard. We get easily distracted and there are so many more seemingly important things to do, but just imagine how devastating it would be if you lost all your family images or even just a single image that was priceless to you. Years of memories gone. What would you have to show your kids when they are older or even your grand kids for that matter?

We take so many photos each day, every day of the year, don’t you agree that they are worth protecting?

So mums and dads when was the last time you backed up your photos? Still need convincing? Well here is a list of ways that photos could get lost:

*phone stolen                          *computer crashes

*phone corrupted                   *computer dies

*phone fails                             *computer stolen

*phone lost                              *hard drive fails

*phone damaged                    *fire flood damage

*accidentally deleting images (this is common if you have photos in multiple folders on multiple computers)

A Sad Story….

Do you remember the heart wrenching story last year about Fiona Dillon, an Adelaide lady who had her phone stolen? The phone contained the only images of her stillborn son who died months earlier. Unfortunately after all the media and public support she received, the phone was never recovered. She tried to search for her images online using cloud recovery services but to no avail. You can read her updated Facebook post below:

So what is the solution?

Well like anything you need to invest a little bit of time and effort and in some instances money in order to fully safeguard your photos. I like to think of it as insurance for your memories.

Let’s explore some of the main options:

• Backup photos manually

Buy a couple of  external hard drives they are relatively cheap and backup your photos manually. Remember that hard drives do not last forever they can fail so it is wise to check their integrity every year.  Also, hard drives can get destroyed in home fires or get stolen.  That is why we keep one hard drive copy off site just in case of the worst scenario.

Why not try this – buy two external hard drives. Get large capacity ones because they can fill up quickly. Now you have three drives (your computer is your third).

Every month copy all your photos that were taken that month (mobile and compact camera or SLR) into a folder with a unique name eg 016-Jan, 016-Feb, etc

Once all your photos are stored in that month’s folder all you have to do is copy that folder to your other two hard drives. Hey Presto, you now have a backup system happening. The hard part is remembering to do it at the end of the month.

• A second option is to physically save your images to the cloud.

There are heaps of options out. Something like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive should be suitable. Once again the hard part is remembering to do it. Most people have good intentions but before you know it half a year could go by. That’s a lot of photos that may be at risk.

• The third option is having your photos automatically backed up to a cloud service.

This eliminates the need for you to remember to do it. A couple of things to be aware of are some of the cloud options require you to pay a small fee. Also, companies can and have gone by the way of the dodo. So be mindful of who you use. If you stick with one of the larger players you should be alright.

What should you do next?

The common tendency is for people to read this article, realise that it is important but then not to take any action. Why? Well, the likely reason is that they put it on their things to do list but given that it doesn’t seem like a priority it always gets pushed aside.

I really believe that this is important for you and your family! So what can I do to fix this? It calls for something radical. Let’s try this:

– Leave a comment below and tell me of your plans to implement one of these strategies. Don’t forget to include a date for when it is to be done. Prior to that date I will remind you (via email) and check on your progress.

– Email me your number and I will call to remind you and check on your progress.

– Call the studio on 9570 6191 and discuss with me your plans and I’ll also be happy to answer any questions you might have relating to this.

How does that sound? Good luck.

Warren