Why Image Backups Are So Important

One thing that I absolutely love about photographing weddings is it’s something that’s 100% real, all of the emotion, all of the passion, you can’t fake that. I get so much pride from documenting these moments for couples and I realize how important these moments are, that’s why I put so much thought and time into how I protect each photo and that’s why I create image backups for every wedding and engagement session that I photograph.

When couples ask me, what are the questions they should be asking, the number 1 question that I bring up every time is what kind of thought goes into protecting their investment. Weddings are one of the most important days in a couple’s life, there has to be plan in place and efforts made along the whole process to ensure these important moments are not going to be lost due to system failures or a corrupt card.

It has taken me years to create a plan that ensures that every image is protected along the whole process from photographing the moment, editing, and delivery. This is the part of any business that people don’t really talk about because it’s not particularly sexy, but it is every photographer’s responsibility to do. This is the process that has worked for me and is always evolving. Some people might say that it is a bit obsessive, but it gives me peace of mind knowing that every image that I capture is protected.

Step 1

This is where it all starts, the camera. I only have cameras that have dual card slots which means that it has the capacity to have two memory cards in the camera at once. This provides me with the ability to shoot to both cards simultaneously creating a backup of each image taken so if one card were to fail, I would still have a card with all of the images taken on it. If a camera doesn’t have dual card slots, I’m not interested in shooting with it.

Step 2

When I get home from an engagement shoot or a wedding, I go straight to the computer to start to upload the images. I never wait until the next morning no matter what time I get home, I just feel better getting them uploaded.

Step 3

Right after getting them on the computer, I start to upload them to my RAID system which is a very critical part of this process.

This is how Steadfast.net explains what a RAID system does.

“RAID 1 (Mirroring)

While RAID 1 is capable of a much more complicated configuration, almost every use case of RAID 1 is where you have a pair of identical disks identically mirror/copy the data equally across the drives in the array. The point of RAID 1 is primarily for redundancy. If you completely lose a drive, you can still stay up and running off the additional drive.

In the event that either drive fails, you can then replace the broken drive with little to no downtime. RAID 1 also gives you the additional benefit of increased read performance, as data can be read off any of the drives in the array.”

The reason why this is important is because I have 4 Solid State drives where two are mirrored similar to the two memory cards in the camera in Step 1. If one were to fail, it will automatically rebuild itself to one of the other unused drives while already still having a drive with the same data on the failed drive. Have I ever had a memory card or drive fail? No, but I would rather be proactive in case something does happen. When all of this process is done being uploaded, I then format my memory cards that were in the camera. I do this at the very end just so I can check to see if they were uploaded properly and are in perfect working order.

After delivering the images to the client, I keep all of the files for 1 year making sure that the client has adequate time to download them and for another level of redundancy.

I take my job very seriously and I realize that couples are trusting me with a huge responsibility, and I want to make sure that I don’t take that lightly. If you have any questions at all about any of this process, definitely let me know!