This is a guest post by Olivia from Star Concepts
Since Digital Photography took over the world, the amount of photos we take these days is massive. But, what do you do with your photos and how do you store and organise them?
Storing Photos
There are many ways to store & organise your photos, and many of us probably still have heaps sitting on a USB card in our cameras or, more and more often we are using our phones to capture moments, so you probably have a few hundred sitting on your phone to! I guess the question I pose to you is…. what happens if you lose your camera or something happens to your phone? All those memories are gone in an instant, and we all know that technology isn’t 100% safe so how often are you backing up your photos from these devices?
I have always made it a routine that at the end of the month or after a major event, I will copy all my photos from both my memory card in my camera and from my iPhone to my main desktop. Since having my daughter in 2007, I began a folder for each year, and in that folder I have sub folders for each month. I now find it really easy to go back and find pictures from exactly when I want them. I also create a folder each year called “Calendar Worthy!” Some would say I have a passion for photo gifts (LOL), and every year for the past 4 years I have created a calendar for my family at Christmas featuring the year in photos. Having this folder makes it a lot easier and quicker to go to find the photo’s I deem as “calendar worthy!” So this is a great way to organise your photos on your desktop or laptop.
Backing Up Photos
Now, the important part “BACKING UP!!” Does your computer have auto backup set on a regular basis? Does it back up to an external hard drive in case your main one crashes and you lose everything? Do you also back up to CD’s or DVD’s? Did you know that when it comes to Iphone’s, even though you link into your iTunes and it sync’s everything, the one thing it doesn’t do is transfer your photos from your phone to your computer, and hence they aren’t being backed up?
Having started my own business in helping people create amazing artworks and gifts with photo’s makes me very passionate about how important it is to ensure you don’t lose your precious memories. When asked to write this Blog post I researched and found out some very interesting information about storing photos and here are some keys things I want to share with you;
- Don’t just backup your photos on your hard drive, this can crash and you can lose it all.
- Backing up to an external hard drive is a safer option, however it still can crash.
- Burning photos to CD’s or DVD’s is another option but I was very surprised to know that these have a life span of 10- 15 years only on good quality brands. Cheaper brands my not even last 10 years! I was extremely shocked to learn this fact.
- Storing on USB sticks again they have a limited number of times they can be used, if they break or get damaged the information on them can be lost.
- Storing on places like Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, Dropbox and even Facebook is definitely not ideal either. These sites and many others allowing you to share photo’s and store them is totally out of your control and can be lost very easily.
- Cloud Computing is the very latest and some of you may have heard of the iCloud with Apple, which holds all your information in a “cloud” floating out there somewhere!!! This is probably the best option at the moment and using a reputable company like Amazon, they have the S3 Storage Service, however it does cost you.
So with all these points I have shared with you and when researching this important topic, until they can make technology safe and we are 100% sure we can’t lose our photos or data, good old fashioned printing them is the safest way to preserve our memories.
Here is a quote I came across in the New York times, “Making lots of backups is good advice, and on different formats, different places; consider paper as an archival medium. Some paper we have has lasted thousands of years. If Moses had gotten the Ten Commandments on a floppy disk, it would never have made it to today.”
Take time to enjoy your photo’s and reminisce, keep them safe so that generations to come will be able to look on and enjoy them to.
