My Photo Gift to You
An important and worthwhile tip!
I love taking pictures. So do many people! So, here’s my photo gift to you…a tip! SAVE AND PROTECT YOUR PHOTOS!
I really like this photo (above) I took of Gabe and Isaac on, 12/31/2012, the last day of my 2012 Photo a Day Project. I don’t want to lose it.
In this day and age, people are taking more photos than ever before…by far. Cameras are ubiquitous…and virtually everyone has one available. And everything is photographed. Of course, many (or most!) of those images are for short term purposes, but some are actually valuable memories that should be saved, backed up, archived, and even printed! While many of us know that, there are still people who are cavalier about protecting their photos. I’ve heard many stories of people who have lost ALL their photos because a computer drive crashed (they all do, eventually) or a phone broke and nothing had been saved elsewhere or in another format (as a print, for example).
The photo above is from a 2005 trip to Buenos Aires with Judy, on Florida Street.
We all have vacation photos that we don’t want to lose! But, this photo is interesting because it IS from an older era when pixel counts were much lower and digital processing was more primitive. But, I have this photo backed up on an extra, remote drive (NOT on the host computer…I just have current photos there) and also backed up (archived) from there on another drive. I’ve also printed it. Besides that, I am going to back up my archive files on a remote, off-site location. That is, to one of the many cloud services that are available, or through WiFi to an offsite computer or drive. By the way, I’m not suggesting you should do what I do since there are a myriad of workflows available to deal with this issue. Do a little homework and come up with something that’s feasible, affordable, and comfortable for you.
I already have my phone photos backed up to Apple’s Cloud. It’s safe, accessible…and it’s cheap. Please do, at least, something like that with your phone images.
Another vacation photo that I don’t want to lose! Lucky to be in that spot and capture that fleeting exchange. Backed up, archived, printed.
I read a sobering article about Vint Cerf, a Google Executive who is considered one of the “fathers of the internet.” Click this highlighted link to access the article! He has a very plausible and credible opinion about the potential “digital dark age.” Ouch!! Among other things, he notes it’s likely our formats or devices will change (think video cassettes, etc.!) or degrade, and much of our recorded memories could be irretrievable.
Note that he suggests printing important images. But, even that is a risky proposition! Many of us recall lost or damaged photos from the pre-digital era.
I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE THIS PHOTO! haha So, backed, archived, and printed. And soon to be saved on a remote site or cloud.
So, before we are on the road to oblivion (which may look like the above photo!), don’t forget my photo gift to you! Save, backup, archive…and more, if possible!
Thanks for stopping by!
Stephen M. Levin
www.SML-Photos.com
Facebook – @stephenmlevinphotography
Twitter – @stephen_levin
Instagram – sml_photo
stephen@sml-photos.com
Thank You for the gift. Will it be a silver print on Double Weight Paper? -:))))
Hmmm…I don’t think so! No silver prints. ha
Have you tried some of the newer papers? I’m very happy with the results.
In addition we should publish our stuff on every free site available — Flickr, Google Photos, etc. One never knows which will survive, but at least one may. Even if none of them survive your image may be saved on the internet archive ( https://archive.org )
In this way we can maximize the likelihood the archeologists (or your family) of the future will find the images. Just be sure to title them so that your great^n children will know who they are.
Excellent additional information! Good advice, Clive.
Thanks.
Glad you posted this. Just got a new IPhone and Daina saved everything to my computer and the cloud. Afraid of losing the pictures.
Great! It’s a good practice to backup.
And enjoy the new phone.