Pixiq

Violet Skies

Earlier we asked our readers in the Your Photo Tips.com Flickr Group to give us some of their best one sentence photography tips and we had a great response! For this last and final week I’ll be elaborating, in my own words, what those photo tips mean to me and how they can help you become a better photographer. So if you missed the original post you can find it at 16 Quick Tips For New Photographers.

Because this will be an ongoing series this will be where I tell you to bookmark the website or subscribe to our feed so you don’t miss the upcoming posts!

Back Up Your Photos Today

ted @ndes reminds us to back up our images by stating

Someday, when you least expect it, your hard drive will crash, so make sure your digital photos are always saved in more than one place.

More than one place.  Let that part really sink in.

Most technology professionals understand that it isn’t if a hard drive will fail, it’s when.  If photography is your hobby, obsession, or profession you need to ensure that your images are safe by creating a layered backup system.

Wonder what would happen and how much it would cost you to retrieve that data? Here’s a clue, it’s a lot of money to retrieve that data.

Backing up your photos is a different process for everyone.  Some people burn to CDs or DVDs while others use multiple hard drives to handle the load.

I actually use a combination of the two. I have an external hard drive that does a backup every night, and I burn CD’s that are kept at my parents house across town. So if my place were to burn down (knocking on wood right now) I would have backups to pull from over there.

There are easier ways to get this done. I really like the idea behind the Drobo system and have been seriously looking into getting one. It’s automated, it grows with you, it’s redundant and it gets rave reviews from guys like Leo Laporte and Scott Bourne. I’m sold.

Whatever method you use, just make sure you use one. I can’t imagine the gut wrenching feeling that would overcome me if I were to lose everything because of a hard drive fail.

So what are you waiting for?  Back up your hard drive today!

Photograph Violet Skies by ted @ndes