MY BACK-UP WORKFLOW.⁣

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As a photographer your main goal should be you being there to serve YOUR clients. Period. That starts with client communication, the experience they have and SO much more. But something that I feel is not talked about enough and that a lot of people are not properly educated on is BACKING UP YO PHOTOS.

Sooooo….. let’s dive in.

What is point of giving your clients your all if you are not going to treat their photos like they are just as important? Because news flash - THEY ARE. If you are a photographer - it doesn’t matter what stage you are in - professional or just picked up a camera, if people are investing in YOU then you need to turn around and give them the experience of a freaking life time.

Backing up your photos after a session should be the FIRST thing you do.⁣ let me say it again.
BACKING UP YOUR PHOTOS AFTER A SESSION SHOULD BE THE FIRST THING THAT YOU DO.

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I know. You just shot an 8-hour wedding and you drove 2 hours home. It’s 2am. You are dead tired. But guess what? That is still part of your job. Back up every single photo before your head hits that pillow. Why? Because you cannot recreate those insanely special moments. Yeah sure you can reshoot (sometimes) - but it’s not the same.⁣ Imagine if you just had your most perfect, dreamy wedding to find out that your photographer lost either all of your photos or even just a chunk. I would SCREAM. And you should.

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And to be 100% honest, your clients don’t deserve to be treated like they aren’t the most important thing to you. Because they are.⁣

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~ story time ~

When I first started photography, I lost a session. And by lost, I mean that I deleted an entire engagement session from my laptop on accident. Poof. GONE. I felt awful. More than awful. I was so mad at myself. I cried my eyes out and then I called my couple. They were more than understanding. After a full refund and a reshoot, I learned my dang lesson and I ordered my first external hard drive that night.⁣

~ the end. ~

SOOOOO what IS your back-up workflow, Sarah?

Here is what you’ve read this far to actually know.

So before you even start shooting, if your camera has a dual SD card slot option, USE IT. Record every session onto two cards - an SD card and a CF card. That way you have TWO copies of your session before you even get home. You may think that is a little excessive but SD cards can crap out on you. It has not happened to me but it does happen. This just insures that you already have a backup.

I have four 4TB WD My Passport external hard drives. I swear by WD My Passport. I have used them for years, and not so gently either…. I have dropped one on concrete and yeah it rattles a little bit BUT it still has yet to crap out on me. I cannot recommend this brand enough. Okay moving on.

After each and every session, I get home or back to my hotel room, etc. and I plug in my SD card and as many hard drives as I can to my laptop. You can do this next portion however you like, but I have a strategic folder system in place so I know what is RAW, what is edited, and what is the LR catalog. I back up all of the RAW photos into the RAW folder on all four hard drives. Yeah it is time consuming. So while this is going on, import a few photos into LR, edit and send a sneak peek to your couple. They will be WOWED.

After all of the back-ups have been completed, I put the SD card and the CF card into a sectional container labeled with what session it was. I do not touch those cards until that session has been edited and delivered to my clients.

Once my sessions are delivered, I delete all but ONE copy of the RAWs and I also keep the LR catalog and one copy of the edited photos on one of my hard drives. I will always and forever have the original and edited version from every shoot. I have my different reasonings for this and I know people who only keep photos for XX about of years. Totally your preference.

Moral of this long story: I always always ALWAYS have 5 copies of every session until delivered in their hands. It saves you from stressing and it saves you from being put into a very crappy situation.

Aight. Go order an external hard drive, back up your photos, and continue kicking some butt!

xx, sar

back that shiz up | my back-up workflow