Clients always ask if I save their images. I reply this, "I save what you purchase. I can't save every image as it requires and incredible amount of space on my computer or a hard drive." Then I also say this, "I am not a library."
You should really LISTEN to these words,,, for many reasons. First (the easy reason),, you should purchase prints or file you think you want. Why wouldn't you? You made the choice to come in for a session to document whatever that special moment is that is going on in your life. Printing images gives you your hard copies of that moment in life. You won't be ok with letting memorable images go. So print now,,, do it > NOW.
What if your couldn't print or buy another digital file from your photographer? What if there was not a way to get another copy of that image you love so much? My next reason for writing this post is the more important point.
Images/Digital Files may not last,, sometimes they go P O O F !!!
How?
When a computer or an external hard drive crashes and dies! Even those little thumb drives die. Even cloud images go POOF! Nothing lasts forever.
Unfortunately, I just found this out about 6 months ago. My -newest- external hard drive did in fact crash and die. It sounded like a squeaky bicycle when it was happening... I tried many times to re-start the computer and hard drive,,, I tried connecting the hard drive to a lap top like a fellow photographer suggested. And nothing,, it didn't work. At the suggestion of other various photographers, they said to send it in to a big company who could retreive any digital file and other file forms off a hard drive. And guess what? I sent it to California,,,, with no luck. They could not fix it to get any info off of it. I lost everything on that hard drive. I lost client work,,, I lost all the photoshop elements I purchased,, I lost all the images I saved over the years to make composites with,,,, I lost all my business invoices, logos, templates,,, gosh... And I lost my own family photos. . . . . . .
E V E R Y T H I N G is gone......
Responsible photographers (as I am) do all this backing up. But when hard drives crash, it's out of our control. There's no rhyme or reason. It's electronics.. There's no fault. We do our best and sometimes bad things happen. Which makes reality hard. Lessons are sometimes hard to learn. But they are remembered for a long, long time... What's the solution? To just keep backing up. Buying bigger, better hard drives and hoping it doesn't happen again. But remember,,, nothing if fool-proof. (Enjoy the images below that are of light painting outside in the dark, but resemble electric/electronics. :0). )
