Why Save Your Photos?

Here's the thing... we all know that technology is constantly changing and the photography world is no different! The way that I save my photos has not changed since the day I started my preservation system, but the technology that I am working with changes monthly. By the time I have delivered your photos or videos to you, Roy and I have two solid copies that we have meticulously archived. I won't bore you with all of the details, but I will say that we have a copy of your gallery on a hard drive that stays at our workstation. We also have an identical backup that stays put in a fireproof and waterproof safe. Even though we feel as confident as we can be with this archival system, there are still a ton of unpreventable situations that could cause us to lose your photos. The number one reason that we could lose your content is if our hard drives fail. Every year we research new brands of hard drives and we purchase the hard drive that has the best possibility of lasting a lifetime, but since 2016 we have still had 3 different hard drives go "corrupt" or stop working properly. Because we have a system in place with other hard drives, we have been very fortunate in that we have never lost any of our client's work. But just as VHS tapes sit and decay over time, so will our hard drives. It is just the nature of using constantly changing technology. All of this is to say - you must take it upon yourself to save your photos (especially your wedding photos and videos) in a way that you believe will last you a lifetime!

Now, you may have read that last paragraph and thought to yourself, "Well I have the online gallery you delivered to me, and that will stay up forever."

No, Roy and I leave galleries up for several months, but we do eventually delete old galleries. We have to pay for our website and websites only allow photographers a certain amount of space on the site. To keep our work relevant and have room for new client galleries, we have to delete old client galleries. That is why I am adamant that you download your content at your earliest convenience. I will explain how to do that below.

How to Save Your Photos:

Thankfully with all of the new technology that comes out, it becomes easier and easier to save photos! Currently, I use a popular website called Pixiset. Pixiset was made for photographers and makes it very easy for my couples to download their content!

When you first receive an email from me saying that your gallery is ready, I will include a PIN. That PIN has to be used to download the photos. I do this for security purposes. Only people with access to your PIN can download your content. This means that if you want your family members or friends to save your photos, they will just need you to send them the pin.

After All of the Content Has Been Downloaded...

You will notice that your photo gallery has several options. We offer a print store that makes it very easy for clients to order photos from. There is also a heart icon that allows you to create a favorites category. This can be useful for many different reasons, but one great reason can be to save your favorite photos onto your phone. If you would like to have some of these photos accessible on your phone, but not taking up too much I would recommend downloading all of your favorite photos onto your phone with the "web size". Web size is great for posting on social media, but should not be used for printing.

Where to Save Your Photos:

I am well aware that people have all sorts of different levels of technology that they use so I will be going through options that can work for even those who do not have a desktop. I would recommend that you skim through this list and pick three options that will work great for you.

• Desktop/Laptop - I would suggest that you save your photos/videos into a folder with a name that you will remember how to search, such as "2024 family photos" or "last name Wedding". Either save the folder on your desktop or somewhere internally on the computer that will be easy to access and remember for you.
• Hard Drive - If you are familiar with saving important documents, files, and photos to a hard drive then this is self-explanatory. I would just suggest that you use a naming system that is easy to remember and easy to search for even years into the future.
• Flash Drive - The most important part about saving photos/video on a flash drive is not losing the flash drive! Keep your flash drive where you keep other important documents (like your birth certificate).
• The Cloud - There are many cloud services such as Google Photos and iCloud for apple that can backup your photos automatically from your phone. I use Google Photos and for $99 a year I can store up to 2TB of images on their cloud service. The nice thing about the cloud is they usually have easy back up integration and no matter what happens to your physical drives you can be sure that your images are safe online forever as long as you keep paying your subscription.
• Phone - We all probably have thousands of photos saved on our phones. If you feel comfortable saving photos on your phone then keep in mind two things. The first is that you will need to make sure you transfer photos to new phones as you upgrade your phone. The second thing is that if you save your photos with high resolution they will take up a lot of space on your phone, but they will be great to print in the future. If you save "web size" photos to your phone then you will save space, but you should never print web size photos.
• Printed Photos - Printed photos should always be stored somewhere safe where they will not get wet or too hot. Having a tangible copy like a print can be a great option because if you lose your digital photos, you can always scan in prints to your computer.