I am often asked to document amazing milestones and memories, like the birth of a newborn baby, or a beautiful wedding. There is nothing I love more than helping create photos and tangible memories for the families who walk through my door! I feel honored and privileged every single time. But, with the digital age comes a new amount of risk and obstacles concerning backing up and saving your family photos…nothing is more tragic than families losing their photos in a tragedy like losing a home or even just a laptop. I have a few tips for each of my clients on preserving their memories, whether professional photos or personal photos:

-Store digital photos in more than one location: Places like Shutterfly, Groovebook, and Costco photo allow you to store your photos on their servers. These are not foolproof, and you must abide by copyright rules, but they can be a good soft backup to an external sources, like a hard drive. I’ve read about some families creating monthly albums on these types of servers to categorize and organize photo memories, and that may be a great option. Remember that these services can change terms or remove your photos at any time depending on their individual rules, so they should not always be your first choice.

-Back everything up as frequently as possible. Although there are wonderful services that offer backups, like your iCloud if you use an iPhone, these are not fail proof. Using an external hard drive is your best bet. Download your smart phone and camera often, and place photos in folders that you back up to an external hard drive. You can store these types of hard drives in a fireproof safe or even a safe deposit box (perhaps you could a master one of wedding or baby photos in a safe deposit box).

-Know how to properly eject a thumb drive or devices: By learning how to properly eject your devices from your laptop, you can reduce the risk of corrupting files or photos. You can google instructions on proper use, or use the manual that accompanied your device(s).This is especially true for the clients who have recently purchased new cameras or phones and are unsure of how to download photos.

-Make physical prints and products: Don’t let your beautiful memories languish in drawers or on thumb drives. After backing up your photos, make prints of your photos to hang and store in albums or scrapbooks. Again, having more than one location where photos are stored is ideal in the event of a disaster or loss of photos. Consider making children a simple photo book online somewhere like Shutterfly, and saving it somewhere like a fireproof safe, or preserving wedding photos in a digitally printed album or heirloom leather or bound album. Hang canvasses and art prints out of reach of children, and do not store them where they will be damaged by water or heat. Also, remember that professional printing (like the prints I offer) are always the way to go. Beautiful portraits that are printed at low quality printing services can greatly jeopardize their final look.

I am the lucky one who gets to create your family memories and document them, turning them into prints or canvases, and now you know how to safely preserve these irreplaceable photos..but you have to take the first step: scheduling your session! I offer a wide variety of products and prints to meet all your photo needs. Contact me today for an available date!