I was once part of your ranks. I was the typical computer user. The worshiper of technology. A believer that had faith. Faith that my new digital camera would allow me to take unlimited photos of my family and surroundings and then save them permanently on my computer or CD for my grandchildren to enjoy. Now I have to be honest, I wasn’t completely a blind follower. I was aware of the danger. Maybe I was too busy with my family. Too wrapped up in capturing the moments with my cool new toy. Too busy cleaning the garage, mowing the grass and paying bills to worry about it at the moment.
Sound familiar? Then my day came. The day that I learned the evil truth first hand. Technology is flawed. My computer hard drive died a sudden death and in the process ate about the first 6 months of my first sons photographic existence. My lesson was learned the hard way that technology has no brain, no expected life span, no reasoning or compassion. We all need to be on the defensive when it comes to our digital photos and effectively plan for the worst. Plan to understand the technology, plan to back-up in some reliable way, and to do it regularly.
The purpose of these articles are to save you from experiencing the same loss. Whether it be images that are essential to your work or business or essential to your family or personal artistic expression, I am going to try to help you on your way to understanding how to properly save, organize, store and archive your digital photos for future generations to view and enjoy. Now, you may have noticed that I said “try” to help you. Unfortunately we all need to come to face the fact that there is officially no perfect way to archive photography other than making a high quality print and putting it in a safety deposit box or on microfilm. Even doing so won’t make your images last forever.
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
>>My computer hard drive died a sudden death and in the process ate about the first 6 months of my first sons photographic existence.
Ow - that hurts, big time. Wince.
With the digital storage of photos on the rapid increase one maxim of life I happily repeated to anyone may change. Havng reported on and gone into a few burned buildings, and talked to families afterward there was often one deep regret - loss of photos.
Once people realized their family members were OK, they started thinking about their dead relatives, who's only visible memory was photos. There are a lot of omemories in photos and they almost always came up without any prodding from me.
So, keep all your stored photos in one place where you know where thery are. Keep negatives somewhere else entirely if possible,
Next to my writings on 40,000 (conservative estimate) different pieces of paper, my photos are the most valauble thing I have.
Well, and my computer would be if I didn't have so much of it backed up on discs and servers.