I don’t even believe that clients know this fear is a possibility, but photographers live with this fear quite often. Why? Because it DOES happen! There have been several cases of lost, stolen, damaged wedding files. And how…HOW do you tell your client that you lost their images? How do you tell them that their images were damaged? Their WEDDING DAY! The day they will never ever get back!
That fear haunted me so much at the beginning when I wasn’t prepared and all it took was for me to hear from a close friend how she’d lost a wedding collection before I finally decided to get smarter about it. And then over time, even smarter!
Here are three current steps I take to ensure I’m doing the best that I can to secure my clients’ collection. I believe that I will still work on perfecting this even more, but right now, I feel this is a great step process.
- DUAL STORAGE CARD SLOTS [instant back up]: ALWAYS, ALWAYS use this! WHY? Because cards corrupt…for no reason at all! So if you’re banking the entire wedding on that one card that can let you down-you’ve got another thing coming. This is what happened to my friend. Tip + Product:
- Set your camera’s dual slot to Back up mode: Go on youtube for your specific camera [assuming you have a dual card slot camera] to find out how to set up your camera’s dual slot to “back up” mode.
- Large SD/CF card as your back up: Another key component for me was purchasing 128GB card so that I can put that on my back up slot and pretty much keep it in there the entire wedding while only switching out smaller cards in the other slot. This also makes the next backup process easier since I only have to upload 2 really large cards, since I shoot with two cameras, versus 6-8 smaller sd/cf cards.
- Do not format/delete your sd/cf cards until you’re finished processing the collection: Last tip for this section is this. Try not to format [delete] your cards until you’ve processed the collection completely! This will ensure that you have the originals at all times until you’re finished. Yes, this will cause you to need to purchase more cards, but isn’t it worth it in comparison to losing someone’s wedding files? I think so.
- Lets go back to the main focus…I don’t care your card size, just always always have it set up in back up mode.
- EXTERNAL DRIVE BACK UP [same night or day after!]: Every year I buy a new 4 or 6 TB external drive that I only use for THAT YEAR! I back up my files there in a folder [I will leave details to my folder and organizing system for another day]. This is usually what I carry around with me at all times and what I tend to use to process the actual collection on my laptop since I’m always on the go. I like to keep my laptop as clear as POSSIBLE for speed and productivity so I store nothing on it. My external drives serve as my storage for my laptop.
- DESKTOP BACK UP + CRASH PLAN [same day or day after]: Last place I store my files is my desktop computer at home which is also operated with “Crash Plan” which is an online backup system. If my computer goes down, I will be able to access all of my files, including the hard drives connected to my desktop.
One more key thing. As I’m working on the photos and processing them, I don’t want to lose the process I’ve made on them with my external drive. I will usually export the catalog from Lightroom on my external and then upload the catalog on my desktop as well so I’m constantly backing up the process as I go. This part is confusing and I’ll be doing a Youtube video soon to help instruct with this process of backing up your files while you’re processing the collection so you don’t lose hours of work.
Guys! Moral of the story! Stay safe. The last thing you want is to be another case on the internet of how “my photographer lost my wedding files.” Please take precaution. You don’t have to do all of these steps right away, but find where you are and climb up a step. Along the way you can find an even better solution for you!
LET’S DO OUR BEST TO KEEP OUR CLIENTS HAPPY and DELIVER what we promised! I’m with you on this! -Rubi Z
