26th Aug, 2008
Backing up and storing your digital photographs
There can be such a sense of enjoyment from photography whilst traveling the globe or wherever opportunity takes you. These moments, also recorded into your own memory cannot be shared with others in the same way without a photograph or two. For whatever reason you take digital photos there can be one thing that’s true of all cases and that’s the need to backup and store them in more than one place. There are instances both while you travel and after you’ve returned home whereby these stored memories can be lost unexpectedly. I lost the majority of my digital photos during the California Fires of October 2007. The fire burned my home and took with it my computer and external storage device which I thought would be sufficient to protect me. I realize now I was just protecting myself from a hard drive failure and not a catastrophic event, such as a fire. Sifting through the remains of my home did turn up some good news in the form of a compact flash card I’d kept in another room which remarkably survived unscathed. The contents hold my wedding photos, something that simply can’t be replaced. It might seem like overkill to keep several copies of these memories, but on the other hand perhaps it’s not and I now live by the saying “expect the unexpected”. In my opinion you can never be too safe when it comes to storing valuable memories.
Protecting your photos as you travel
Laptop
| If like me you travel with a laptop, then you already have at your disposal an additional portable method of storing your photos. This can be an extremely quick and easy way to keep another copy. You can also use your laptop as a central location for your pictures enabling you to make additional copies elsewhere. I also travel with a memory card reader so I can upload pictures to other computers in internet cafes if needed without having to carry my camera with me to these locations. |
Thumb Drive (USB Drive)
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If you travel with a laptop then it’s very quick and easy to store photos onto a thumb drive. The resolution of the photos you take will make a difference to the size of thumb drive needed. Personally I take photos of a quality suitable for the web so the image size is small. For this reason I use a 1gb Lexar thumb drive, but I’ll purchase another should the original fill up. A thumb drive is another great way to copy photos to computers in internet cafes should you need to.
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Burn photographs to CD’s
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If you travel with a laptop that has a CD writer or DVD burner then it’s very easy to take blank CD’s with you or buy them as required and make a copy of your photos. Keep the CD’s with you or better still, mail them home or to someone who can look after them until you return. If you don’t have a laptop with you its possible to find internet cafes, photography shops, photo developing stores and other places that can take your memory card and burn the pictures onto a CD for you.
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FTP
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Owning and running the WorldRamblers blog gives me the advantage of access to a FTP site which I use to upload all my travel photos. Before traveling I made arrangements to have someone access this location to download and store the photos on their pc and eventually burn them to a CD. There are many online storage options that can be found including FTP sites. There are also online sharing sites such as Flickr or Facebook which can be used to store your photos combined with the ability to share them with others.
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Digital memory cards
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With all the options available above it’s still wise to keep the photos you take on your memory cards. I travel with enough memory cards to store all the pictures taken on a trip. Just because I may have a copy on my laptop or FTP site doesn’t mean I will format the memory card for re-use.
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Protecting your photos at home
There are numerous ways you can protect your precious memories at home, here are just a few.
- Make CD copies of photos
- Store backup CD’s in a fire safe and ask a friend or family member to look after copies at a different address.
- Store photos on more than one home computer if available
- Purchase an external storage device to keep a copy
- Synch photos to an Ipod
- Thumb Drive (USB Drive)
- FTP site
Whatever method(s) you use for home storage be sure to keep a copy that’s easy to grab should you ever be put in the position to evacuate your home quickly. This I cannot stress enough. Remember when it comes to protecting your photos, expect the unexpected.
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Posted by: Rich Meadows - WorldRamblers
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