With the rise of social media and smartphones, we are without a doubt taking more photographs than we have ever taken before. Its estimated 1.2 TRILLION photos were taken last year alone! So in this digital age how do you keep your precious wedding photographs safe from harm? Well, hopefully, this little blog post will help you to protect your digital wedding photographs from the trash can or silicon heaven.
I used to work in a fairly large retail-based technology company and almost daily we would get people walking into the shop distraught that they have busted their phone or laptop or whatever it was and that they have lost everything. Most of the time, people were worried more about the photos than anything else.
On average the total cost for wedding photography in the UK is between 10-20% of your total budget. It is also a growing trend, to only have the final digital photographs for you to do what you wish at a later date. With albums taking a bit of a back seat. So it's a good idea to protect and keep your happy memories as safe as possible! All of my weddings get the little card with basic care instructions for your wedding photographs, but you can take it even further with the below 4 easy and low-cost steps.
Step 1.
Get your photos.
So I'm in the minority of photographers who actually send a USB (alongside an online gallery for ordering prints or sharing with family) with weddings, it's a personal thing for me, I like tangible physical things. Most photographers now just email you the photos in a fancy gallery for you to download, and that's totally cool too! I just happen to like to hand out products is all.
Whether you're downloading from my USB or from your wedding photographers online gallery/USB, Save the photos to your computer as well.
Step 2.
Backup.
So now you have your photos, you need to back them up! If you have a USB from your photographer you could say this has already been done! You need your photographs in several places at once. What if your computer gets stolen? What if it just breaks because you spilt some water over it? So if you have your USB and photos on your computer then you already have two places in the bank, congratulations!
If you digitally downloaded the files from an online gallery, then I would advise that you purchase a USB and copy the photos onto it. Then keep it somewhere safe.
Step 3.
Back up twice.
Now there is a saying that if you have not backed up your photos at least twice, it's not backed up. To put it politely, stuff happens, and it happened to me in the past as well so I know the feeling!
One of the best ways to back up your wedding photos is to use a cloud service like iCloud, or google photos. Using these has an added benefit as well as acting as a backup. Let's take a very extreme example, if you had a house fire and all of your belongings were either chard or rather wet from the fire brigades efforts. It's fairly safe to say that your wedding photos will be toast as well!
If you back up to a cloud service like the above, then they will be stored on various computers extremely securely, around the world. All you need to do is download them again.
The added bonus of doing this is fantastic! if you download the clouds app then you can see all your wedding photos on your phone or tablet at any time! Winner winner chicken dinner!
Step 4.
Print them.
Photographs in my mind are designed to be physical, they belong on walls in albums and in your hands to hold. I'm not saying you should print them all but you should for sure print the ones you adore! With my USBS, including the ones that come with albums, my clients have full printing rights to the photos. Print your own, or order them from me. Do whatever you like, just make sure you love the photos you love by printing them and displaying them for all to see. After all, its harder to lose a 20x16 framed print!
Thank you for reading the above steps and I really hope it has given you some ideas to keep your wedding photos safe from any harm.
If you would like to know more or if you would like to contact me about your upcoming wedding or elopement then please feel free to contact me!
Share this story
