if you’re lucky enough to have found a photographer that gives you digitals or sells the digital files…this article is for you!

i have clients email me all the time… “so i downloaded my pictures, what do i do now?”

i really don’t have a straight answer. my goal as a photographer is for my clients to have gorgeous heirloom prints lining their walls for generations to admire, keep and hand on to other generations throughout their lives. but guess what…people only want digital files!

why do people pay hundreds of dollars for wardrobe, photography sessions and hair and makeup just to ask for pictures to put on Facebook? i have no idea. i think if you’re investing in producing art, you should also invest in displaying your art!!! but hey, that’s just me 🙂

so here are THREE things i will tell you to do with your digital files…

1} save them to multiple places

it happens…email gets lost {shout out to Hillary}, your CD gets broken, your USB drive corrupts, etc. i’ve heard it all. guess what…it’s NORMAL. those things are not guaranteed. the average lifespan of a CD is 5 years. yes. 5 years! and that is if you’re lucky. USB’s you may get 7-10 years out of. so i tell all of my clients to back up their images to multiple places. when they’re gone they are gone and they’re VERY expensive to get back if you have to run data recovery services on something…and then they aren’t even guaranteed. so please, save them to at least 3 different sources.

2} PRINT

print your memories. what if your CD breaks and your photographer only guarantees backups for 1 yr and it’s been 3? good thing you printed all 200 of those family photos right? wrong! you forgot to…and now you have zero record of that session you worked so hard to plan. there needs to be something to hold, something tangible from that day! i encourage all of my brides and grooms to print their wedding photos…so why wouldn’t i do the same to my portrait clients? want a good place to print them? try this website!!!

3} share them

share. share. share. we live in a very personal world…everything is on social media. it’s how family members ‘keep up’ with everyone else. it’s how aunt sally knew that molly sue had her baby last week and he was a whopping 9 lbs. share your images! don’t just leave them on a hard drive.

so let’s recap…

1. SAVE 2. PRINT 3. SHARE

it’s really simple 🙂 give it a try!!!