Finding the Will to Backup Our Work

The creative side of photography is wildly enjoyable. Archiving those images is about as dull as it gets. Here’s why we should do it anyway.

The stuff from my iPhone is easy. I bought a big slice of the iCloud pie and let Apple serve it up from there. Thank goodness. Because I use my iPhone as a memory retention device, there’s lots of oddball stuff I’ve digitized — food labels, business cards, pictures of TV screens. Best I hand that off to someone else to manage.

But then there’s my “real photography.” And much of it has worth — not Ansel Adams value, more like a good screwdriver when you need one.

This last holiday season was a perfect example. Over the years I’ve accumulated many artistic images of colorful lights and ornaments that are perfect accompaniments to blog posts and social media notes I needed to write. Being able to find those quickly, and not having to reshoot them, was a huge timesaver. This was one of the many moments when I was thankful for my functional backup system.

People often ask me about the perfect approach to storing images. It’s way too personal for a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s like trying to buy shoes for another photographer.

I would say “protect” and “find” are two key factors. You could have the most bulletproof system in the world, but if…