Are Your Photos Safe?
Mine Weren’t Either, But Now They Are
There was this adorable memory of my middle son that I kept tucked in the back of my head. He used to pout when he was sad/angry. That face made me and my husband nearly collapse in laughter, which only made our little guy more pouty and angry. I knew I needed to capture that face because he wouldn’t do that forever. Once I did, I didn’t think anything of it until recently. One sleepless night I wondered how long ago was that photo taken? Could I still find it? What if my external hard drive crashes? I will lose that face forever. Along with all the other pictures of the way my kids were back when they were little. All the vacations, all the special occasions along with the everyday moments, would they be lost forever?
Peace of Mind
As a keen podcast listener, I ran across one where the topic was backing up and organizing old digital photos. Now, as a photographer, I handle a lot of photos. I do have a system in place to make sure I don’t lose current client photos. But personal photos is another story. Anyway, the podcast reviewed several options but recommended SmugMug because of the ease of use and the privacy features.
I gave it a try and was delighted to see how easy it was to navigate, create albums by years, dump, dump, dump all my old photos. It comes with a mobile app, so if I want to share that pouty face with a friend, I can pull it right up on my phone. Or I can share a link with a friend so they can see my whole album too. And I can tell you I have peace of mind knowing there is a backup out there. They make uploading easy. I can tag my photos into categories. When I want to see pics of my daughter, I can just search her name there they are. However, it doesn’t have face recognition, so I have to tag manually.
Regardless, even as I write this, I know I am not even going over the many features it has. You can order prints, but I haven’t tried that yet. I will report back. I do know making albums is not hard. For now, you can’t create the albums in SmugMug, but they have partnerships with album makers, so your photos can be linked with those companies. I tried that in December for a Christmas gift and was very happy with that service.
This is the view of an opened gallery. It’s great to see all the photos at once. I am organizing by color for this set.
15% off of SmugMug
As I was exploring the wonders of SmugMug a client contacted me. Her computer crashed and she was trying to recover what photos she could. I was glad I was able to give her the photos she wanted from me. I told her about my experience with SmugMug and then thought, maybe I should become an affiliate. Now I am. This means I can offer you 15% off a new account if you click on the link below. I get a commission from the sale, but it doesn’t cost you anything, and it helps to support my small business. So thank you!!!
