To get the right photo, you have to have the right gear. For professional photographer Matthias Bruggmann, the photography equipment he brings with him is more important than the clothes he packs.

“The idea here is to pack minimally but make sure you have redundancy for everything photography related,” Matt says of his packing style. When you’re following reports of the Taliban through a forest of warlords in war-torn Somalia, it’s important to take care of your photos.

In fact, whether you’re a professional like Matt or an amateur photographer, you need secure and reliable storage to safeguard and organize your photos. Computers and laptops can fall victim to damage, theft or viruses. Boxes of photos and CDs are typically unorganized and become difficult to sort through.

Preserve Your Growing Photo Collection

Digital photography has caused an explosion in the number of photos that people take. With digital cameras and high capacity memory cards, you can now take thousands of pictures at a time without having to replace rolls of film. Photo collections are growing on a daily basis, becoming ever more challenging to store and organize.

 

“From the moment the card is out of the camera, I try to keep two copies of the data at all times. Having a second external hard drive can be a good idea, since [hard drive to hard drive] copying is extremely fast and much less energy-consuming than disk burning.” ~ Matthias Bruggmann, professional photographer

Peter Radsliff, executive director for consumer marketing at Seagate Technology®, explains that digital photographers today need to look at alternative storage options. “We’re now getting into the realms where files take up more and more space—they will just overtake and fill up your PC. You don’t want your photos to be erased by a virus—they need to be in their own private vault.”  Saving your photos on an external hard drive helps keep your memories alive and accessible whenever and for however long you want.

Professional photographers like Matt Bruggmann record an interpretation of history with their photographs. Matt regularly travels through dangerous environments—Somalia, Baghdad and Chernobyl, to name a few. On location, he encounters unusual problems in creating and preserving his digital photographs, including 120-degree heat, gunfire and theft. Matt travels with three hard drives to insure the survival of his digital images.

“From the moment the card is out of the camera, I try to keep two copies of the data at all times,” he says. “I also carry an external, bootable [hard drive]… just in case of catastrophic failures, and tend to try to keep a copy of the raw files on both, as much as possible. Having a second external hard drive can be a good idea, since [hard drive to hard drive] copying is extremely fast and much less energy-consuming than disk burning.”

Tips for Digital Photographers

Just as your interest level in photography dictates the type of camera you will need, it also defines your storage needs. Whether you’re the family photographer or a professional photojournalist, storing your photos on a laptop or PC is not enough. One computer virus or stolen laptop and your digital library is gone.

To assure your photo collection is organized and safely stored, here are some suggestions:

• First, learn how to save pictures from your digital camera to your computer. Most digital photography software will do this for you automatically.
• Always keep a backup of your photos on an external hard drive rather than storing them only on your computer. 
• Organize your hard drive with folders for your photos. When naming the folders, also use the date of when the photos were taken. This will help you sort and find photos more easily.
• If your digital life is centered around one computer, choose a reliable hard drive to store your content. A pushbutton external hard drive is a simple way to allow your photo collection to live and grow.
• Shared storage devices make it much easier to manage multiple cameras. They also allow you to securely publish your photos over the Internet and share them with selected friends and family.
• If you are a serious photographer and take a lot of pictures at full resolution and minimal compression, or if you scan old family photos for digital safekeeping, consider using redundant hard drives or RAID systems. These will allow you to keep your prized vintage photos safe, but still permit instant access for sharing.