The Photography Tip of the Week #053

Posted by Philip in Photo Philosophy, Podcast

053 Photography Tip of the Week (audio)

Doubly Redundant

What is the one thing all photographers fear? Lost photos. Horror of horrors. I’d rather have my appendix removed three times than lose a single photo. Even if the photos are just some family snapshots. Photographers have an emotional bond with every image they create. Around Christmas, I did lose some photos for about 2 weeks. I actually misplaced a memory card. It was a strange case where the memory card got stuck to the inside of a lens cap. I felt horrible for quite some time, because on that card was my annual Christmas Eve photo with family. It’s difficult reshooting a Christmas Eve photo, especially after the tree and decorations are down. Obviously I did find that card and it re-instilled in me my paranoia about my photos. Last year I mentioned that I had one girlfriend in the past that thought that photography was a waste of time and money and decided to “help” me out and get rid of my camera equipment, film, photos and negatives. She didn’t stay my girlfriend too much longer. I lost an enormous body of work that day including many negatives for paid sessions. I was in a world of hurt for a long time and didn’t get back into photography until the digital cameras came out. Now we can easily backup our photos and ensure we never lose anything. So here is how I ensure I never lose another photo. This isn’t so much a single tip, it’s more a suggestion as to a way of life, photography style.

The best way to protect your next photographic creation starts in your camera before the first press of the shutter.

1. Format your memory card right after you put it in your camera. Even if it’s empty, formatting ensures the card is set correctly for the camera you are using. Now that there are only two major styles of memory cards, if you have multiple cameras, they each could have different ways of storing the data on the card. If you are in the habit of deleting your photos from the card while it’s hooked into a computer, those files may not be gone until you empty the trashcan or recycling bin.  Formatting the card ensures all of the files are gone and you have the full capacity of the card.
2. Next never fill the card up completely. In most cases the displayed number of photos you can put on the card is an estimate based on the average size of a photo on the memory card. If you are at the end and can only add one more photo, it’s possible for the last image to be bigger than the estimated size. When it tries to add that final image, it knows that it can add a photo, but in the process of writing that last image the image overwrites something else on the card. If it’s the directory structure or listings, you could lose all of the photos on the card.
3. Deleting images from your card should be used only in the case of an emergency. Like when you have room for only one more photo and an important celebrity is crossing your path. Deleting images leaves a fragmented card, and makes it difficult for new images to fit on the card.
4. Finally don’t take out your card unless you run out of space or you are ready to dump your images. It’s easy to lose one of the cards as my story above showed. But misplacing cards aside, there is the chance that having the card exposed to the elements could corrupt them.

Now it’s time to dump the images off your card. I use an external reader for several reasons. The main one being speed. Many external card readers can download your photos much faster than connecting your camera to the computer directly.

1. Organize your photos immediately. Even though I have my image downloader set to make individual folders by month/day/year this doesn’t tell me the type of image. So I have several folders setup so I can perform a gross sorting of the images. The folders I have are “Business” , “Family” , “Artistic” as well as a folder for any specific project. I know that there are many pieces of photography software that easily helps you to organize the files within their software. This is all well and good, but if you stop using that piece of software, you will lose all of that structure. If you have your photos in a physical structure, in the future if/when you switch to a different piece of software, you can easily find your photos based on these categories and dates.
2. Don’t delete images from your card or format your card yet.  The next section has to be done before you format your card.

Now it’s time to be doubly redundant. Should I say that again? I have my photos in at least two other places than my main hard disk. I do want to keep at least my recent photos on my main hard disk, but I have all of my photos in several other locations.

1. The first backup location is my big hard disk array. I’m using a drobo which in and of itself is a redundant storage mechanism. But I still treat it as a single drive and thus a single point of failure. It just isn’t as likely to fail as a single hard disk.
2. My second location is one of those small external hard drives. This is a copy that I can easily put in my pocket as I’m heading out the door. In many cases one or two of these drives are in my camera bag. So when I grab my camera bag to run away from a tornado and do a photo session with the wicked witch of the east, I’ll have one or two backups with me on my travel down a yellow brick road.
3. My third location is a cloud backup solution. There are several with a small monthly or yearly fee (I use backblaze), your hard disk is backed up automatically as new files enter your system. This isn’t an extremely fast way of backup but it ensures that if something happens to your computer and your external hard disks, you can still retrieve your photos. I’ve told many people that I want to have at least two full copies of my photos further apart than the width of the largest hurricane. A cloud backup solution solves the problem.

That is my rather exhaustive list of what I do to be doubly redundant with my photos. If I lose a photo in the future, it’ll probably be because I didn’t do one of my steps and corrupted or lost a memory card. You may not be as paranoid as me, but I hope this has given you an idea or two to help you to protect your photos.