A few days ago I read a New York Times article that really frustrated me. It was titled “Your Phone’s Camera Roll Is a Mess. Here’s How to Clean It Up.“
I wrote my opinion on this article in a previous post. You can read that one here.
Perhaps I’m obsessing on it a little. When something is important to me, I’m definitely not one to just let it go. Making sure that everyone has a safe and secure backup of all of their phone and print pictures is a mission I have no intention on dropping. And when this article neglected to include that aspect of photo organizing I felt it was even more important that I share my input (repeatedly!!).
THERE IS ONE ASPECT OF PHOTO ORGANIZING THAT IS A NON-NEGOTIABLE.
It is imperative that all of your pictures are securely backed up and saved in multiple locations. That is the ONLY way they are actually safe. Digital files get accidentally deleted, corrupted, lost. Old print photographs are susceptible to damage in a long list of ways…. Flood, moisture, fire, heat, a toddler with a marker, even just the passing of time will deteriorate a print photograph.
How do you make sure that your photographs are safe?
You need to get digital copies of your print photographs and have them stored in multiple locations. Here is a link to my list of suggested methods to get a digital copy of your print pictures.
What about your phone pictures? Those definitely need to be backed up too. Here is a link to my list of suggested methods to get your phone pictures organized.
And to the New York Times, if you are reading this (first off, Hello!), and you absolutely need to feature more of THIS kind of information. While keeping your phone full of pictures separated out into folders and put in easy to locate groupings is nice, as was suggested, it’s NOT the imperative step.
The imperative step is making sure they are safe in the first place.
It is also not uncommon. I once did a poll on my Instagram asking if anyone had ever lost digital or print images. 90% of the people who responded had experienced that pain.
Here are a few pictures of damaged photographs that I’ve had the unfortunate task of trying to recover.
I talk to people (and console them) in situations like this way too often. I have seen first hand how traumatic it is for anyone to realize all of their most important photographs are gone. I absolutely hate having to hear anyone in that amount of pain. And now I’m here, making sure that every person (and the New York Times) knows how important securely backing up pictures is.
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