10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits

By: Darren Rowse

How do you take Portraits that have the ‘Wow’ factor?
Today and tomorrow I want to talk about taking Portraits that are a little out of the box. You see it’s all very well and good to have a portrait that follows all the rules – but it hit me as I was surfing on Flickr today that often the most striking portraits are those that break all the rules.
I want to look at some ways to break out of the mold and take striking portraits by breaking (or at least bending) the rules and adding a little randomness into your portrait photography. I’ll share ten of these tips today and a further ten tomorrow (update: you can see the 2nd part here).

1. Alter Your Perspective

Most portraits are taken with the camera at (or around) the eye level of the subject. While this is good common sense – completely changing the angle that you shoot from can give your portrait a real WOW factor.

Photo by striatic

Get up high and shoot down on your subject or get as close to the ground as you can and shoot up. Either way you’ll be seeing your subject from an angle that is bound to create interest.

Photo by TeeRish

2. Play with Eye Contact

It is amazing how much the direction of your subject’s eyes can impact an image. Most portraits have the subject looking down the lens – something that can create a real sense of connection between a subject and those viewing the image. But there are a couple of other things to try:
A. Looking off camera – have your subject focus their attention on something unseen and outside the field of view of your camera. This can create a feeling of candidness and also create a little intrigue and interest as the viewer of the shot wonders what they are looking at. This intrigue is particularly drawn about when the subject is showing some kind of emotion (ie ‘what’s making them laugh?’ or ‘what is making them look surprised?’). Just be aware that when you have a subject looking out of frame that you can also draw the eye of the viewer of the shot to the edge of the image also – taking them away from the point of interest in your shot – the subject.

Photo by monicutza80

B. Looking within the frame – alternatively you could have your subject looking at something (or someone) within the frame. A child looking at a ball, a woman looking at her new baby, a man looking hungrily at a big plate of pasta…. When you give your subject something to look at that is inside the frame you create a second point of interest and a relationship between it and your primary subject. It also helps create ‘story’ within the image.

Photo by paulbence

3. Break the Rules of Composition

There are a lot of ‘rules’ out there when it comes to composition and I’ve always had a love hate relationship with them. My theory is that while they are useful to know and employ that they are also useful to know so you can purposely break them – as this can lead to eye catching results.
The Rule of Thirds is one that can be effective to break – placing your subject either dead centre can sometimes create a powerful image – or even creative placement with your subject right on the edge of a shot can sometimes create interesting images.

Photo by reportergimmiâ„¢

Another ‘rule’ that we often talk about in portrait photography is to give your subject room to look into. This can work really well – but again, sometimes rules are made to be broken.

Photo by Bukutgirl

4. Experiment with Lighting

Another element of randomness that you can introduce to your portraits is the way that you light them. There are almost unlimited possibilities when it comes to using light in portraits.
Side-lighting can create mood, backlighting and silhouetting your subject to hide their features can be powerful.

Photo by Bukutgirl

Using techniques like slow synch flash can create an impressive wow factor.

Photo by diskomethod

5. Move Your Subject Out of their Comfort Zone

I was chatting with a photographer recently who told me about a corporate portrait shoot that he had done with a business man at his home. They’d taken a lot of head and shoulder shots, shots at his desk, shots in front of framed degrees and other ‘corporate’ type images. They had all turned out fairly standard – but there was nothing that really stood out from the crowd.
The photographer and the subject agreed that there were plenty of useable shots but they wanted to create something ‘special’ and out of the box. The photographer suggested they try some ‘jumping’ shots. The subject was a little hesitant at first but stepped out into the uncomfortable zone and dressed in his suit and tie started jumping!
The shots were amazing, surprising and quite funny. The shoot culminated with the subject jumping in his pool for one last image!
While this might all sound a little ‘silly’ the shots ended up being featured in a magazine spread about the subject. It was the series of out of the box images that convinced the magazine he was someone that they’d want to feature.

Image by TeeRish

6. Shoot Candidly

Sometimes posed shots can look somewhat…. posed. Some people don’t look good in a posed environment and so switching to a candid type approach can work.
Photograph your subject at work, with family or doing something that they love. This will put them more at ease and you can end up getting some special shots with them reacting naturally to the situation that they are in. You might even want to grab a longer zoom lens to take you out of their immediate zone and get really paparazzi with them.
I find that this can particularly work when photographing children.

Photo by phitar

7. Introduce a Prop

Add a prop of some kind into your shots and you create another point of interest that can enhance your shot.
Yes you might run the risk of taking too much focus away from your main subject but you could also really add a sense of story and place to the image that takes it in a new direction and gives the person you’re photographing an extra layer of depth that they wouldn’t have had without the prop.

Photo by Mrs. Maze

8. Focus Upon One Body Part – Get Close Up

Get a lens with a long focal length attached to your camera – or get right in close so that you can just photograph a part of your subject. Photographing a person’s hands, eyes, mouth or even just their lower body… can leave a lot to the imagination of the viewer of an image.
Sometimes it’s what is left out of an image that says more than what is included.

Photo by Bukutgirl

9. Obscure Part of your Subject

A variation on the idea of zooming in on one part of the body is to obscure parts of your portrait subject’s face or body. You can do this with clothing, objects, their hands or just by framing part of them out of the image.
Doing this means that you leave a little to the imagination of the image’s viewer but also focus their attention on parts of your subject that you want them to be focused upon.

Photo by BigBlonde

10. Take a Series of Shots

Switch your camera into ‘burst’ or ‘continuous shooting’ mode and fire off more than one shot at a time.
In doing this you create a series of images that could be presented together instead of just one static image.
This technique can work very well when you’re photographing children – or really any active subject that is changing their position or pose in quick succession.

Image by diyosa

10 More ways to Take Great Portraits – Continued Tomorrow

Update: You can read the 2nd half of this series at 10 More Tips for Stunning Portrait Photography. Also check out What the Mona Lisa Can Teach You About Taking Great Portraits for a portraits tutorial with a difference.

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HOW TO POSE People Who Are Not Models

5 Tips How to Set Up a Home Studio for Dramatic Portraits

A Post By: Lily Sawyer

Having a brick and mortar studio when you are a photographer is such a huge and daunting step. There are so many overhead costs to consider such as rent, electricity, insurance and various other bills. It’s a worry to cover all these before you pay staff and yourself and still make enough profit to make a living. This thought can make one feel that having a studio is an impossible dream or is too of a big a step to take. But you can always start somewhere, so let’s look at some tips for how to setup a home studio.

How to set up a home studio

If you have a spare room in your home or a basement, that is a good place to consider as a home studio. You may be surprised at just how much space is needed to start a portrait studio. Not that much at all! In this article, I will show you how I have set up my little home studio which I have recently revamped to make into a dedicated portrait studio.
I live in London in a narrow Victorian house. These houses have a typical 2-up 2-down rectangular layout, short side across and long side from front to back, with a narrow corridor that runs on one side of the house all the way to the back. My house has two reception rooms (living rooms) and a dining room and kitchen at the back. I decided to make the first reception room (the front room of the house) into my studio. It has a bay window at the front which juts out of the house and provides nice ample natural light.
At first, I set up my backdrop on the opposite side of the window so it was facing the window directly. The reason for this was so that I could get a much wider area for shooting. However, this is not great for dramatic lighting with natural light flooding from the window, with the camera right in between the backdrop and the window. This lends itself to flat lighting instead which isn’t what I wanted for my studio.
In order to achieve a more versatile directional lighting and avoid flat lighting from the window, I use strobes at 45-degree angles to the backdrop to get the lighting setup that I like.
Recently, I have moved things around so that I can use dramatic natural light if I want without the need for strobes, although I still have the flexibility to add strobes and artificial light if needed. This is how I’ve done it.

#1 Make sure your backdrop is at 90-degrees to the window

This angle gives you a lighting that is more dramatic as it is only coming from one side. If you position your subject so that the far side of the face is unlit, you could achieve lighting similar to the Rembrandt style or low-key portraits.

#2 It is ideal to have an L-shaped corner connecting your window light to your backdrop or wall

Having this little dark, unlit corner between your backdrop and the window gives you a 45-degree angle lighting setup which is one of my favorite set-ups. The corner minimizes the light for you to be able to create a moodier image with only the front left of the face illuminated rather than full light flooding from the side.
In terms of artificial light, this is similar to controlling the amount of light hitting your subject either by the use of grids, a strip light or a snoot. You don’t want your subject awash with light as that would make for a rather flat lighting.
My personal preference is for having both light and shadows in my images so I can sculpt my subjects using directional light. If you don’t have such a corner, you can use a V-flat (two black pieces of mountboard taped together to form a V) positioned in the corner as shown in the diagram above.

#3 Paint your wall dark or use a dark backdrop

You will be astonished at the difference a dark backdrop makes! It brings focus to the subject far more than a light backdrop can. It also lends itself to more artistic photos.

#4 Diffuse your window light

Window light, albeit coming from an angle, can still be a bit harsh. You can further soften this light by diffusing it with some white sheer curtains or voile or any fabric that can diffuse the light. The bottom half of my windows are frosted which means they are already perfectly diffused. I cover the top half with pieces of diffusion fabric to cut out the light.

#5 Use a reflector or light opposite the window

Much like in a painted portrait, reflected light is a pleasing detail found at the edge of the unlit side of the face. A silver reflector can achieve this very well with a stronger reflective light result as compared to a white reflector. I find that the gold reflectors can make the skin too warm so I stick with the silver and warm up the overall image in post-production.
The reflector does have to be positioned really close to the subject to make it more effective. If you don’t have an assistant who can hold it in place for you, get a free-standing reflector arm that you clip the reflector into thus making it easy for you to position it as needed.

Using strobes

If you want to use or add artificial light such as strobes or continuous lighting, consider a portable studio kit that you can fold and hide away when not in use. Here you can find suggestions of equipment to use for your portable studio kit.
There are many possibilities and things that you can do with this type of setup. Even with just one flash (like this tutorial), you can create dramatic home studio lighting. Another fun thing you can do with flash is creating double exposures.
These images below were taken in exactly the same spot as those above. But this time a gridded softbox was placed on the right as the main light instead of using the natural light coming from the window on the left.

I hope you found this article helpful. Please share images taken in your home studio, and if you have one or more tips on how to create portraits in a small studio space please share those too.

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How to Turn Your Living Room into a Photo Studio

A Post By: Jackie Lamas

Have you ever wished to have a studio space where you could bring clients in and photograph all types of portraits and ideas? You can! Your living room, or any room in your home for that matter, can be quickly converted so that you can photograph your studio ideas in your home!

Setting up backgrounds on a plain wall can help you take great portraits in your own living
room.

Finding the right space

Your living room might be the room with the biggest space for you to get the best angles and set up your lights. As long as you have about 10 feet of blank wall space, you can use it for your at-home studio.

Choose a wall where you can mount backgrounds. Put up studio paper, or any background paper. Alternatively, use a painted wall for your photos. It doesn’t have to be anything special, and you could use the existing wall as the main background as well.

A bedroom with big windows can be used as a studio for portraits.

Why 10 feet? The wider your wall space, the more room you’ll have to the sides of your photos. This will enable you to photograph both horizontally and vertically. You will also have room for more than one person.

If you’re photographing headshots or only individuals, a smaller wall space would work. A wall with 5 feet would be sufficient enough for headshots and individuals.

Other spaces in your home that could work

The living room doesn’t have to be the only space that you can use. For example, if you don’t have studio lights, but want to create beautiful portraits with creative direction on backgrounds and don’t want to go on location, your home can still work!

You can photograph in a covered patio with lots of wall space, in your garage, in the bedroom, or on a balcony. All of these spaces work if you have the wall space to place your subject and space to photograph them from a distance.

This makes it much simpler to choose the right location for your at-home studio in the event that you don’t have studio lighting equipment or a special look to your photographs.

Creating the best set up for studio/flash  set up

You don’t necessarily need to use studio lights for your at-home studio, however, if that is what you’re going to use then let’s go through what you’ll need in the space for the best outcome.

Use flash bouncing off the ceiling to light portraits in your living room or in the space you want 

for your at home studio.

You’ll need to choose a wall space that is in a darker or not-so-brightly-lit room. You can also use shades or curtains to block out light so that your off-camera lighting can correctly light your scene.

Using a flash to light these portraits to simulate the sun. Plain wall background in the bedroom.

Living rooms offer the most space but make sure you can get it dark enough to set up the lights exactly where you want them.  You could also use external flashes to set up your at-home studio.

You can light portraits creatively when you have control of the space and lighting.

Have a lamp nearby so that you can use it as a modeling light. You can also use a light dimmer so that the light doesn’t affect the outcome or interfere with the white balance, exposure, or look and feel that you’re trying to achieve.

Best set up for natural light at-home studio

If your living room or any other room in your home has great natural light, you can definitely set up your studio there. The same tips apply as far as wall space so that you can pose your subject and have enough space in the frame in case cropping is necessary. It also gives you the option to photograph vertical or horizontal.

This was shot with all natural light using a silver reflector with a 3×3 grey background
taped to the wall. Edited to bump up the contrast and desaturate the colors.

Choose a room that has great window light or light coming into the space. For example, a garage space with the garage door open is a good option. Another good option is a living room with big sliding doors where light floods the room. Make sure that the sunlight isn’t coming directly into the room or through the window where it casts weird shadows on your subject.

To diffuse the light, you can hang translucent curtains. This will help with harsh lighting, shadows, and the temperature of the room. Of course, you don’t necessarily need the window open unless it adds more light to your scene – if that is the look you’re going for.

If your home has textured walls, you can use them as backgrounds for the portraits as well!

Use a reflector and bounce cards to help bounce light in the direction you want. Black flags  (black boards that help darken the light) and are great for creating shadows and can help to give you more dramatic lighting.

Be aware of the floor

In your home, your floor is already installed and this can present a problem if you’re photographing full-length portraits. Take a look to see if the floor is what you’ll want for your photos. If it isn’t, you can use paper and place it from the wall all the way to the floor. This will create a seamless look to your photos like a real studio.

In the before photo, we covered the floor with a black sheet so we could photoshop the black 

background in and create a seamless look.

You can also get cheap wood floor-looking laminate flooring and create your portable floor. If the trim base to the floor isn’t distracting, you could even possibly photoshop that out to create a more seamless look with the wall and the floor.

Just be aware of your floor so you know what to do before you start photographing in your new home studio.

Backgrounds for in-home studios

There are a lot of great backgrounds that you can use for a home studio. Given that it’s completely your space and you can get really creative. The simplest one is the one you already have available! Use the existing wall color and texture to create interesting portraits.

You can use existing decor to create beautiful portraits or tape a paper background to the wall 

for a seamless background.

Other backgrounds you can use can be:

• A sheet that covers the wall and onto the floor for a seamless fabric background.
• Paper either rolled onto the floor for seamless or a piece of paper taped to the wall for up-close portraits
• Any fabric or paper with a print on it
• Different colored paper for headshots

Pretty much anything you can think of you can create as a background! You can get really creative with balloons, tissue paper, hanging strings, lights, paper flowers, artificial flowers, string or hanging garlands either made by you or already made newspaper or even plants.

The options and ideas are limitless and will give your photos a unique look no matter what your style is.

Your living room can be the perfect space for you to create beautiful studio work. You don’t need fancy equipment just nice wall space and the light you love to photograph with. Add in some music and you’ve got the perfect comfortable studio right in your home!

Do you have other suggestions to make a great living room studio? Share with us in the comments below.

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Backing Up Your Digital Photos: Is Cloud Storage Right for You?

By: Dan Bullman

In today’s digital era, it’s so simple to copy your photos onto your laptop hard drive and forget about them, thinking they’ll be there whenever you need them. But if your laptop crashes or gets stolen, and you haven’t backed up your photos in another place, then they’re gone forever. Most forms of digital storage are unreliable in the long term. Hard drives crash, computers die, and CDs and DVDs get scratched up and become unusable.
If you want to preserve your digital photographs then it is important to develop a strategy to back them up. Many people have started looking to the cloud as a place to store their photos. Could cloud storage be right for you?

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself if you’re considering cloud storage:

• Do you want to use a free storage service, such as Google Photos or Apple Photos? Or are you willing to pay for a service with more features? If so, how much are you willing to pay?
• Do you want to use cloud storage as a backup solution for all of your photos or just some key ones? How much data do you have? How often will you need to access your photos?
• What types of files do you have? Camera raw files? Tiff files? JPEGs? All of the above?
• How fast is your internet connection? Uploading files to the cloud can be very slow.

There are a few free applications, such as Google Photos and Flickr. These services could be a good option to back up your digital photo library if you don’t want to spend any money. The problem with a lot of them is that they either compress your photos, which means a loss in resolution and quality, or dditionally they don’t support RAW or TIFF files. So if you’re a raw shooter then this isn’t a great solution for archiving your photo library.
Luckily there are a number of services which will store your digital photographs for a small fee. There are many different companies that provide cloud storage, so I’ve decided to focus on only a few in the rest of this article. Be sure to do your research and find a service that fits your backup needs.

A Few Options for Cloud Storage

Google Drive

Google Drive is a relatively cheap and reliable cloud storage service. All Google accounts are given 15GB of free storage. From there you can pay as little as $1.99/month for 100GB, $9.99/month for 1TB, and up to $299.99/month for 30TB. Google Drive allows you to organize your own folders and supports all photo file types.

Amazon Cloud Drive

Amazon Cloud Drive touts an impressive unlimited photo storage plus 5GB for video and other file types for only $11.99/year. Additionally, if you have an Amazon Prime account, then this service is already included as part of your subscription. The one catch is that file uploads are limited to 2GB per individual file, so if you have files that are larger than that then you may not be able to upload them.

Microsoft One Drive

Microsoft One Drive has plans that offer 15GB for free, 100GB for $1.99/month, and 200GB for $3.99/month. Additionally, Microsoft is currently running a deal where you can get the Office 365 application package and 1TB of storage for $6.99/month. A big disadvantage to this service is that you cannot store more than 200GB without purchasing additional apps from Microsoft. But if you have less than 200GB, then One Drive is a really cheap option for back up.

Dropbox

The Basic plan gives you 2GB of storage for free. Upgrading to a Pro account will give you 1TB of storage for $9.99/month. The highest level plan is a Business account which will give you unlimited storage for $15/month per user. Dropbox doesn’t offer the most competitive prices among cloud providers but it’s a popular option that you may find reliable. However, if you have more than a terabyte of data, and files that break the size limits of some of the other unlimited providers, then Dropbox may be the best option for you.

Mediafire

Mediafire is one of the cheapest cloud storage options among the major players in the market. They offer 10GB of storage for free and up to a terabyte for only $2.49/month. Most impressively, their Business accounts offer up to 100 terabytes of storage for $24.99/month. If you’re looking to get into cloud storage for relatively cheap, then Mediafire is definitely a good bet.

Alternatives to Cloud Storage

Cloud services are not the only option you should investigate as a place to store your digital photos. Like any other digital backup, cloud storage isn’t full-proof. A quick internet search will show you numerous horror stories of peoples’ data being lost in cloud storage glitches and failures. This section of the article will explore a few other possibilities for saving your digital photos.

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are a good option if you need a lot of readily accessible storage for an affordable price. I use one terabyte Toshiba drives that only cost about $60. There are many other brands that offer similarly priced drives. One advantage external hard drives have over cloud storage is speed of access. You can store these files and keep them in your home or office, meaning they are readily accessible. Trying to download files you have stored on the cloud can be extremely time consuming.
Another advantage is cost; hard drives are relatively cheap when compared to continuously paying for monthly fees for cloud storage over the longterm. The drawback of hard drives is that they will eventually fail. Many are only reliable for 2-5 years, so it is important to back up your files to multiple places. But if you can’t afford a RAID hard drive system and you have a lot of data to backup, external hard drives are a good place to start.

Flash Drives

USB flash drives are another option for backing up data in your home or office. Prices are continually dropping on flash drive storage. Flash drives don’t have a lot of storage capacity, but 16GB flash drives are as cheap as $6. This makes them one of the most inexpensive options to back up your most prized images. I use them to back up my portfolio and store the memory sticks at a relative’s house. It’s not a solution for all of my data, but it gives me an added layer of backup that could save some of my best photos in the event of a disaster.

CDs/DVDs

You can also back up your data on CDs or DVDs, but at this point I wouldn’t recommend it. This kind of media is quickly becoming obsolete, and while it’s cheap, CDs and DVDs are easily damaged or corrupted. Additionally, you can’t store that much data on discs. Most CDs have a capacity of 700MB and DVDs cap out at less than 5GB. On top of this, many computer manufacturers, such as Apple, aren’t including disc drives in a number of their products. This means you’ll have to purchase an external drive just to read your discs in the future. You’re better off storing files on a hard drive or flash drive with a USB connection.

Ultimately, there is no holy grail, one-size-fits-all solution for backing up your digital photos. The main theme is that you should not rely on a single source of backup because it can easily become a point of failure. If you haven’t stored your photos in more than one place and that one backup fails, you’re likely going to be out of luck.
Backing up your photos doesn’t need to be expensive; it just requires that you be strategic. I believe that cloud storage is best utilized as part of an overall storage strategy for your digital photographs, rather than the only point of backup.
Is cloud storage right for your backup needs? That is for you to decide. I hope this article gives you a starting point to get you on the path to reliably backing up your digital photos.

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Create a Backup Today! Here is Why and How

By: Ian Johnson

Are your files protected?

Insurance policies. We deal in them every day – car, home, life, renters, medical and more. The list goes on and on, but what are you doing to ensure your photos are insured against loss? The loss comes in many ways entirely out of your control – hardware failure, theft, or calamity. This article is your wake up call to consistently backup your work.
I am writing it because 5 months ago when my house burned I had my wake-up call. Don’t worry, my wife and I are fine, and there was no loss of life – only property. Why am I telling you this very personal bit of my life? Simple. Catastrophe can come in any form and at any time. Learn from my mistakes and back up as soon as you complete this article.

This picture of my house burning is meant to convey reality. Calamity can happen at any time. 

Do you have a backup solution to protect your files in the face of disaster?

Let me take you back to six months ago because it is likely my backup strategy may reflect your own. I am a pretty serious photographer and create much content of professional and family-related photos.  I had a 24tb server backing up my files with redundancy. From the server, I kept an off-site backup of files by copying to a hard drive and then storing it. As I’ll highlight later, that way of doing a backup is adequate as long as you stay up on it.
Unfortunately, I had not completed an offsite backup for two years! Consequently, ALL of my professional work and memories during that time were vulnerable as my living room went up in flames and the water from fire hoses quenched them. One of the first things I thought when I arrived to see my house spurting 20-foot flames from the roof was, “what about my server?”

Your computer is fragile, but yet we trust them to hold a lot of incredibly important information. 

Whether its fire, theft, water, or failure, be sure your backup solution protects you. Establish
one today!

Backup strategies

It may seem intimidating to back up your work, but thanks to the advances of high-capacity, affordable hard drives there has never been an easier time to do it! Once you have a system in place it becomes even easier. Digital Photography School has published several articles on the subject and most advocate for the “3-2-1” strategy.
This means :
3: Have three copies of your data.
2: Keep them in two separate places.
1: At least one must be offsite.
If this sounds like it is too hard, fear not, and do not tune out yet! I’ll outline three strategies to back up your work in easy to understand ways that serve both beginner and professional photographers. To help show off the strategies I’ve created some schematics (hopefully entertaining and fun ones) to show you how each system works.

Back up to a hard drive

Hard drives are cheap. A quick search shows you can purchase a 6TB (terabyte) hard drive for $125! Before you think to yourself “I can’t afford $125,” consider it is cheaper than any insurance policy you currently pay for, and if your photos are like my photos, it is an insurance policy protecting your memories and business.
Purchasing and rotating two hard drives consistently allows you to keep a backup of your work current. You may want to consult these guidelines for purchasing a hard drive.
Most major hard drive brands come with built-in software to automatically backup your files for you. This makes it incredibly convenient to back up your work. You can use two hard drives (“#1” and “#2) to  adhere to the 3-2-1 rule by:

• keeping a copy of your files on your computer
• using the hard drive’s software to back up to hard drive #1
• taking #1 offsite to a place such as your office or your extended family’s house
• setting up a new backup on #2
• rotating hardrives #1 and #2 periodically. Your backup software will update the files each time you re-attach the hard drive. I recommend doing this at least every two weeks, but you can choose an interval that works for you. Once you choose an interval set up a repeating reminder for yourself on your phone.

Use these easy steps to establish a back-up system using two hard drives.

This solution is your cheapest option and requires the most work on your part. As long as you set up the backup using your hard drive’s software, it will automatically backup your files to hard drives #1 and #2 as you rotate them on and off-site. This system will FAIL if you do not adhere to rotating the hard drives consistently!

Backup to the cloud

Cloud services have become relatively cheap (about $100/year or less) and perform backups of your images with the caveat that you have a regular internet connection. Most cloud services can back up local files and files on attached external hard drives. You can adhere to the 3-2-1 rule by:

• Keeping a local copy of files on your computer
• Using the backup service provided by the hard drive to back up to a hard drive
• Using a cloud service to back up the hard drive
• Storing a hard drive off site

Use this simple system to backup your files to a hard drive and to the cloud.

This is a pretty good option depending on how much content you are creating. If you are generating hundreds of gigabytes of content regularly or if you live in an area of slow internet this may not be feasible for you. Cloud services work best if the file structure doesn’t change. Moving files to new folders create a duplicate and the need to upload more data to the cloud. This option is middle-of-the-road for the expense. It is necessary to pay for a hard drive (or two) and a cloud service for a total of ~$300 annually.

Maintain a server

Servers (refer to NAS Servers) are arrays of hard drive that give you redundancy in case of hard drive failure. Housing all of your images on a server and backing them up from there is a great way to establish a relatively low-maintenance backup of your files. To adhere to the 3-2-1 rule:

• Have a copy of your images on a server
• Backup the server to the cloud, a hard drive for off-site storage, or mirror the server to an offsite storage site.

Having a server may seem complex, but can be the backbone of the rest of your
backup system. 

This is the system I advocate for your if you are able to afford it!

This is the most expensive solution, and will likely cost $1,000 or more to set up. However, that cost becomes distributed over several years since you no longer need to purchase several individual hard drives. This system is overall the most reliable and requires the least amount of work on your part once set up.

Backup now!

I hope my story of personal loss is compelling enough for you to start researching backup solutions immediately. Do you have a story of image loss you are comfortable sharing? Leave it below to add to the mounting evidence of the need for future readers. My story has a surprising ending because my server survived and I was able to recover the files. There is almost no chance I’ll ever be that lucky again. As I always say, “Pixels are cheap.” I say that at the end of all of my articles. However, just because they are cheap, doesn’t mean they are not emotionally or economically valuable. Please back your pixels up today!

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