Posted on May 11th, 2010In this digital age, professional photographers can snap hundreds (if not thousands) of photographs in a single shoot and upload them instantly. Subsequently, utilizing an effective and secure backup method is imperative to protect your work. Here are just a few reasons professional photographers should backup their work:
* What you are selling clients is essentially irreplaceable, especially if the photos cover a once-in-a-lifetime even, such as a wedding. As a whole, lost pictures may be able to be recreated but they can never be replaced.
* The epigram known as Murphy’s law basically states that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” When it comes to backups, your hard drive is less likely to crash if you have a backup in place – it’s not science, it’s just life!
* As a photographer, redundancy is your friend. Several layers of redundant copies will ensure no photo is lost.
* Hard drives crash all the time – more than 100,000 each week in the United States alone.
While most professional photographers have comprehensive backup methods in place, more often than not data loss occurs because they do not have an automated solution and they simply wait too long to perform a routine backup.
Online file storage provides an affordable and secure backup method and a myriad of benefits for professional photographers. First, online file storage can be automated so backups are automatically made as soon as new photos are uploaded to your computer (incremental backups ensure just the new photos and/or new changes are backed up). You can also setup automated backup schedules so backups are automatically made monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly, depending on your preference. Secondly, online file storage provides remote, offsite storage of backups – something that manual backups do not offer. Let’s say a photographer makes multiple backups using external media (such as CD’s, external hard drives, etc.) and keeps the backups in their office along with the originals. Theft or a fire could render the backups useless. In addition, what if they live in an area prone to natural disasters? Online file storage offers secure storage hundreds of miles away and can keep your priceless photos safe and secure.