The Importance of Backing Up Your Images

Protect Your Memories

Last night I attended the monthly meet up of a Boston area photographer group, the PUG. This month Joe Ciarcia, a New England wedding photographer and backup expert took us through the steps of backing up data and how to ensure that our important files, like images, are protected. As a wedding photographer this area of my workflow is of great importance, I want to make sure that my clients precious memories are protected and safe, so I spend a lot of time making sure that everything is in it's place and backed up.  
 
It's also incredibly important to me as MOM and documenter of memories for my family to know that my images are safe. But how many of us can say that we are as meticulous with our own personal files as we are with those for our clients?! I know I certainly fall short when it comes to protecting my own personal images. I've eluded to it before but never went in depth about the "epic iPhone battle" of this past fall where, after my iPhone failed to turn on, the hard drive was taken to away be repaired and subsequently "lost". That phone had on it images from my son's first few months of life, of only which two months had been backed up and stored safely. As you can imagine I was DEVASTATED. My images were gone. I should have been backing things up but I took for granted their safety and became relaxed in how regimented I was in doing so. Because I didn't have a system in place for my own images, they were lost and I spent lot of time last fall crying over images I'll never see again. 
 
Image back up is SO SO SO important and yet so many of us "forget" to do it. In our age of digital EVERYTHING it can hard to remember that drives fail, images are lost and files are corrupted. Backing up our images is the best way to ensure that even if the "worst" did happen, we'd be secure knowing that we can get those images (MEMORIES) restored.  
 
So how do you go about doing that? Here are a few of the ways that I backup my PERSONAL images.  
 
1. PRINT -- My favorite and number one recommendation for backing up images is to GET THEM PRINTED. Please, please, please get those precious images off of your computer and into an album or a frame or a canvas. Get them printed into tangible memories that you can hold and enjoy. Printing your images ensures that if your files were ever lost or damaged you'd have a REAL, PHYSICAL copy of that image either in an album or a frame somewhere in your home. Plus prints never change format. So while firewire, USB, jpgs, DVDS, they all change your prints remain the same. 
 
2. CLOUD -- Another great way to protect those images that you hold dear is to backup them up somewhere online. There are MANY companies that do things like this such as BackBlaze, Crashplan, Carbonite. I partly use PASS as my cloud storage as I know the images are there and safe for years to come. I also use this system to deliver images to my clients and it does double duty as a secondary backup solution! 
 
3. HARD DRIVE -- But it doesn't just stop there. You never know what could happen to the internet or the cloud. I know that it sounds silly, but having more than one backup system helps to ensure that should one of those systems ever fail you have another outlet in which to restore your important documents. Having a physical hard drive that is a duplicate copy of all the things you want to back up is a great option.  
 
This is different system than I use for my client backup workflow, which is a whole another blog post! This post is to encourage all of us, whether your a Bride and Groom, another photographer or a regular reader, to back up our personal files. Develop your own system of ensuring the safety of those images. I've learned first hand what it feels like to loose the memories you cherish. I never realized what those silly little iPhone images meant to me until they were gone. Images are worth something very dear, they deserve to be taken care of and protected!!If you are a past or current client and would like to create a TANGIBLE memento with your images, it's never too late to get started!! If you have any questions about how to order prints or would like to create an album please don't hesitate to reach out at deborah@deborahzoephoto.com.