San Diego Wedding Photographer

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Backing up your images. This is just so incredibly important for both business and personal reasons. Having gone through four hard drive crashes in about five years (with three of them happening in one year!), I know the importance of backing up your images, firsthand :)

I was asked this recently on my formspring page…

“How do you go about backing up all of your images??? How do you organize them??”

You know, I think this is a very common question that many photography both ask and get asked. I know I asked this question a lot before I had my current set up and I now know how often I get asked the question on my twitter and facebook :) So here’s how I go about backing up my images. There’s probably a million ways, with many being better than mine here, but this is what works for me…

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My hard drives.

I do triple back ups. That’s right. Three. I have four hard drives used at all times. I use Western Digital 2TB external drives as they work just fine and are always really affordable (at the moment, a 2TB drive is $80 including tax and shipping!). They are labeled in the following way…

• 2TB Weddings (which also includes engagements and portraits)
• 2TB Travel (which does NOT include my destination weddings — those stay in the weddings drive)
• 2TB Personal (photos of Clive, Lindsay and I, the dogs, friends, our iPhone photos/videos, etc)
• 2TB Current (it doesn’t say “Current” but rather the date in which I started using the drive)

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Back up #1.

So for my 2TB Weddings drive I do the following. I start out with folders for each year. So on the opening page it would have a few folders that say “Weddings“, “Engagements“, and “Portraits“. If you clicked “Weddings“, for example, you’d see folders a few more folders that say “2009“, “2010“, and “2011“. If you clicked “2011“, each folder inside is labeled by the wedding date followed by the names of the couple and their wedding location (i.e. “04/18 Astami and Chan Bali“). Inside that folder is another series of folders…

• LR (contains the LR edits — corrected for color, contrast, exposure, tone, etc. No artistic flare or photoshop work — just like taking film to a lab)
• RAWs (contains the RAW files)
• Blog (contains the blogged images — these are photoshopped or have my personal flare added as I see fit)
• 1 Star RAWs (I’ll explain this below)
• Album images/design (contains the images I pick for the album and the design)
• CAT 04/18 Astami and Chan Bali (this is where the Lightroom catalog for this wedding will go)

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Back up #2.

So that’s how I organize them on my main “2TB Wedding” drive, but how about backing them up? That’s where my “2TB Current” drive comes in. I put everything I shoot on there (therefore these fill up fast). Right when you open the drive, you’ll see 3 folders…

• Travel
• Personal
• Weddings

So in this case, the backup would be 2TB Current > Weddings > 2011 > 04/18 Astami and Chan Bali.

Inside that folder is typically one back up folders.

1 Star RAWs. In sorting my images, I usually rank 1 through 5 stars in Lightroom. The 1 star images are basically everything that’s in focus or wacky due to funny faces/blinks/nip slips (oh yeah, that happens more than you think ;). I tend to deliver the images from 3 stars and up. No set rules here, but that’s usually the case. Anyways, it saves a ton of space on my 2TB Current drive to only back up the 1 star RAWs. When I export the RAWs, I also export them with their LR settings. So now I have two back ups of not only the RAWs, but also the settings made for those RAWs in Lightroom.

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Back up #3.

So the 3rd and final back up? Remember that “LR folder” in my “2TB Wedding” drive? That goes straight into Smugmug (and there’s a plugin for Lightroom so you can export directly into Smugmug). Smugmug uses tons of backups all over the globe, doesn’t mess with the quality of your uploaded images, and you can get a free back up of all your images whenever you want them (there’s an awesome “download all” feature from Smugmug now!). In order to lose these images, there’d have to be some electric shutdown over the entire globe!

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As far as my “2TB Personal” and “2TB Travel” drives, it’s basically the same thing as above.

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Well, I hope that helps! Feel free to ask questions or add some ideas. I know there are probably quite a few better, more efficient ways to back up your images :) And if you’re looking for more hard drive space, it’s cheaper than ever! Western Digital 2TB external drives are, at the moment, on sale for $80 after tax and shipping! There’s no excuse for not backing up your images these days ;)

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And since posts like this need some sort of photo, here’s a baby hawk in my tree last week!

Bobby

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Click here to see tilt shift lens tips for wedding photography, part one. Below is part two ;)

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6. Tidying up a cluttered scene. Due to the ability to play a role in the focus of the image, with tilt-shift lenses one can choose to make what might otherwise look like clutter (and steal attention from the focus) instead look like a pleasing part of the story.

Shot at Barry and Yulia’s wedding at the Hotel Del Coronado with the 45 tilt.

This is one of my favorite tilt-shift images (of my own — not in general ;). There’s so much happening — and if I had shot it with the 50L, I believe it might have been a bit too busy. But tilting it enough sort of swirls the busyness into a pleasing part of the image. Instead of the busyness stealing attention from the focal point, it plays a supporting role — showing passersby, people enjoying their day at the beach, and some who had to stop and watch two people become man and wife.

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7. For simple, pleasing to the eye portraits. I’m often asked what lens is better — the 45 tilt or the 24 tilt. They’re too different for me to even think in those terms. But one of the ways I differentiate between the two is portraits. For tighter, closer portraits, the 24 tilt is practically useless. The 45 tilt, however, shines as one of my favorites, in this regard.

Shot at Daniel and Lara’s wedding at their house in Del Mar with the 45 tilt.

Until I got the 45 tilt, I rarely took individual portraits vertically. Now with the 45 tilt, I take them all the time. There’s something about the look of portraits when done this way that I personally love.

Shot Kelly in downtown San Diego with the 45 tilt.

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8. Targeting an emotional moment. One of the things that tilt-shift lenses do best is highlighting emotional moments. It can draw your eyes right to the strength of the image.

Shot at Daniel and Michelle’s Morgan Run Resort wedding with the 24 tilt.

Shot at LeAnna and Mark’s Nashville couple shoot with the 45 tilt.

Shot at Ryan and Megan’s Old Richland Schoolhouse wedding with the 45 tilt.

Shot at Meghan and Sebastian’s beach wedding in Del Mar on the 24 tilt.

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9. Sometimes you want parts of the image in focus that are in both the background and the foreground. With other lenses, you’d be force to shoot at f/18. But often times, this isn’t a preferable aperture. Well, in bending the focal plane, you can have things in the foreground and in the background in focus — while not having everything else in focus.

Shot at Astami and Chan’s Bali wedding with the 24 tilt.

Chan and Astami had these awesome Balinese lanterns at their wedding and I was able to highlight both the lanterns and the couple in this image because of my 24 tilt.

Shot at Shelby and Steven’s Beijing shoot with the 45 tilt.

In the above image, we were out on the streets of Beijing. These two have lived in Beijing for many years and wanted China to be included in their shoot. So when people walked by them as they were sharing some PDA, since I can bend the focal plane with my 45 tilt, I was able to get what I wanted in focus (Shelby, Steven, the guy on the bench, and the lady walking by) and keep the rest out of focus.

Shot at Terry and Jen’s wedding at the Darlington House in La Jolla with the 24 tilt.

It sounds unimportant, but I like the fact that the window frame in which I’m peeking through is in focus as is the couple. The wedding venue is an old, historical house and I felt this would go along with better telling that part of the wedding story.

Shot at Astami and Chan’s Bali wedding with the 24 tilt.

Same for the above image. I wanted to couple and the hanging lanterns in focus — without the entire image being in focus, of course.

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10. Go green. It’s the latest crazy, right? But in all seriousness, I absolutely love the way that the tops of trees move out of focus with tilt-shift lenses. So if ever there are trees around, I tilt away.

Shot at Chris and Monique’s La Habra wedding on the 45 tilt.

The above image is a perfect example of the tilt-shift trinity. A tilt-shift lens, trees, and sunlight peeking through. Those three things combined are magical, imo.

Shot at Daniel and Michelle’s Morgan Run Resort wedding with the 24 tilt.

Michelle and Daniel hired an awesome Woody for their wedding day. Throw it in with some huge, backlit tree and I’m a happy camper :)

Shot at Amy and Ian’s day after session at the Pechanga reservation using the 45 tilt.

Same again. The tilt-shift trinity. Tree + sun peeking through + tilting = me likey.

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That’s it! If there’s enough people to push me to do another in the comments, I could probably get a travel/landscape tips post for tilt, as well. Let me know ;)

Bobby

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