From KPTV.com:
A Beavercreek couple is devastated, after their wedding photos, still on memory cards, were stolen right out of their photographer’s truck the day after their wedding. Now, that photographer is offering a reward to get them back.
If you are someone who takes photos that are important, especially if you are being paid for said photos, more importantly, if there is a bride involved with those photos I have some requirements for you:
- Do not leave the event without creating at least one copy of all the photos.
- Do not leave any copies of the photos or equipment anywhere unattended.
- Make multiple backups when you are back to your workspace.
This is not the first time I have heard this horror story. Photographer leaves thousands of dollars of equipment sitting in the car, but more importantly, leaves all the memory cards in the cameras. Someone steals the gear and a photographer has to explain to the bride that all of the once in a lifetime photos are gone. It is 2018, there is no excuse for this.
from KPTV.com
As someone who has learned the hard way not to leave tech in my car, please don’t learn this the hard way. The problem is the gear can be replaced, the photos cannot. When my laptop was stolen the first time, insurance replaced the laptop, but there was nothing to be done about the photos. Luckily I didn’t lose anything that people had paid me to capture.
Now there is always a chance that even if you are super careful, the photos could come up missing, or a memory card could go bad, or any other act of nature. That is why I believe that you should make multiple copies as soon as possible. Even if you don’t want to take your laptop with you, there are other options to make copies onsite.
Here are some recommendations:
You can backup SD cards to Android phones, iPhones, or computers with one of these adapters.
These portable external hard drives have an SD card and wireless capabilities.
Buy some more SD cards, if you’re getting paid for photos, you can’t afford not to, they are cheap these days.
Get a NAS for archiving your photos once you’re home or back to the office. Storage is cheap, make many copies.
A few other recommendations
- For $50/year you can back up everything on your computer and external drives to the cloud via Backblaze. It is secure and automatic. If your data isn’t worth that you probably didn’t get this far in this post.
- Use the free Google Photos as another backup for your pictures. It is unlimited cheap after you run out of the free storage and will work on computers and devices.
I have worked with hundreds of brides as a DJ over the years. I could not imagine calling any one of them to let them know all their photos are gone. Please protect your stuff and make as many copies as make sense as quickly as you can!
If you need help making sure you are taking care of your photos and data, especially for your business, please visit consistmedia.com. This is my company and I will always provide a free consultation on backups.
