What happens to my images after a session?

family photography

Feb 4

Yesterday I had a client reach out to me because her mom passed away and she needed a few digital images for her obituary, but couldn’t find them. We had done an extended family session together a few years prior, so she knew it was possible I still had them.

Anyways, this got me thinking about how important it is to print your images. As a Columbus, Ohio family photographer, I can’t tell you how many times something similar has come up where a client couldn’t find their digital images - which is why only getting digital files is for the birds (thankfully, this particular client had printed hers, and double thankfully - I had backups of the digitals on hand).

In full disclosure, several years ago, when I was trying to run a photography business “on-the-side” and giving the bulk of my attention to my additional full-time job and family, I didn’t do a great job of keeping track of digitals. I’d send ‘em and forget ‘em, occasionally backing up images on to a hard drive when I ran out of space on my computer. Inevitably, I missed a few, and I still think back to sessions I wish I had access to. I just did not have the mental space and energy to keep track of these things on top of my career and family.

Fast forward to the present: I now have an extensive and trust-worthy system for keeping track of all digital files, both my own and my clients, and outside of a natural disaster occurring, I feel confident that the files from every client session I’ve completed since turning my “side gig” into a full-time business are safe and sound. (But still…print your images!!)

Here are my steps for safely saving and storing digital files:

Record images from the camera directly to a high-quality, new (no older than one year) SD card.
Immediately after the session: backup those images to a solid state hard drive. Store the SD card that also has the images away until the gallery is delivered. This guarantees they won’t be written over with new images.
Once editing is complete, import the finished images into a downloadable online gallery, where clients will have access/ability to download their images for a full year (please please please back them up friends). I back up the edited images in the same folder as the raw images on the solid state hard drive - labeled with client name and date of session.
Once the hard drive is filled up, label it with the year and store away for all eternity.

Moral of the story? Back up those images, make sure your photographer has a solid system for keeping track of your images, and print print print the ones that are dearest to you.