{"id":11896,"date":"2012-11-03T23:29:25","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T03:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=11896"},"modified":"2017-12-28T22:04:39","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T02:04:39","slug":"photographers-back-up-plans-for-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/photographers-back-up-plans-for-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographers workflow and back-up plans for disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photographers – workflow and\u00a0back-up plans for disaster<\/h1>\n

The photo above is of a\u00a0photographer’s studio in New York state, showing the damage that was caused by unexpected flooding during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. For all the damage to photo equipment and computers, no data was ultimately lost! \u00a0(Photo used with permission.) My own family was very fortunate in that\u00a0we were\u00a0not\u00a0hurt or sustained any damage to our property. The worst we had to endure were the four days without power. There are so many heart-rending stories of lives lost and lives disrupted with the storm, that it just highlights how lucky most of us in the North-Eastern USA were during all this.<\/p>\n

With a catastrophe like this, there are several backup methods available to us. If at any point in your workflow you rely on a single point of failure, you are courting disaster. \u00a0For photographers, and anyone who has data that is important – you need to consider backup! This is true whether personally or for your small business.<\/p>\n

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You have to think in terms of worst-case scenarios<\/h2>\n

You have<\/strong> to run through scenarios where you make sure that you have your data, even if your house burns down. Or a tornado shreds your house. Or a flood. Or there is theft of your computer equipment. Or any of dozens of unfortunate scenarios affect you.<\/p>\n

You have<\/strong> to consider whether your business would survive sudden calamity.<\/p>\n

For a photographer, severe data loss would mean the end of your business. Not only would you have lost much of your photo gear, you would also have lost your data – photographs and client files and documents. It’s tough enough to get up and running after your photo gear is lost … but add the loss of all your if you have lost all your images and files to this, and it is near impossible to get on your business up and running again.<\/p>\n

Therefore, for your own future and the future of your business, you\u00a0have<\/strong>\u00a0to think in terms of worst-case scenarios.<\/p>\n

The topic – photography workflow and back-up plans for disaster<\/strong> – is one\u00a0we have touched on before –\u00a0photography workflow – back-up plans<\/a><\/p>\n

While the advice there isn’t prescriptive in the sense that everyone *has* to do exactly what I do — after all, there are many ways of ensuring your data is retrievable in any situation — I do feel strongly that if you veer away from the spirit of the advice, you will encounter problems. How badly the problems will affect you, is largely up to chance. But with a little bit of fore-sight and planning, the loss of your computer will be but a mere hiccup in comparison. So it is willful negligence to just leave it all to chance. You can<\/strong> prepare yourself for the worst. You have to.<\/p>\n

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My personal experience during this time, with a hard drive failure<\/h2>\n

So to bring this back to personal experience – during Hurricane Sandy\u00a0(which devastated large parts of the coastal areas on the East Coast of the USA), we had four days without power, which brought my work to a halt. During this time, the hard disc of my main computer (my MacBook Pro), also became corrupted. A day after the hard drive’s data got scrambled, I am up and running again. Here is what saved me … and here is what I’m going to do differently in future:<\/p>\n

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