Protecting your photos while travelling – Part 1

05 Sep Protecting your photos while travelling – Part 1

September is Save Your Photos Month (SYPM)

One of our esteemed colleagues Andi Willis has clearly outlined what SYPM is all about and why you should care (read her post here).

This month in recognition of SYPM we will be posting a 4 part series with a blog each week.

During the series we will be talking about Protecting Your Photos While Travelling.  Today in part 1 of the series we are discussing what to do before you leave.

You have your next big holiday scheduled – flights and accommodation are booked, you have your itinerary all planned out. The only thing left to do it pack. Don’t forget the camera!

Just like you purchase travel insurance to protect you against illness, theft, delays, etc, what about protecting the photos you take while you are on holidays?

As photo organisers, we have heard many stories of holiday photos being lost – faulty memory cards, stolen and lost cameras and phones, not enough storage space on devices, the list goes on.

So before you set of on your next holiday, consider how you are going to protect your photos while you are travelling. Just as we encourage you to have a back up plan for your photos at home, you need to consider how you will back up your photos while travelling.

First determine which devices you will be using to capture images. A smart phone? A digital still camera? A video camera?

Next consider how you will protect the images taken on each of these devices.

Most people will take photos on their smart phone at some stage on holiday. You may wish to set up automatic syncing of photos to a cloud service, if you haven’t already. Before you leave for your holiday, ensure there is enough space available in your cloud storage and that automatic syncing is switched on and working. Next determine if you will have access to Wi-Fi while travelling, to enable afore mentioned automatic syncing to the cloud to take place. There are even wireless USB sticks available now that will back up your camera roll via wifi, without having to be plugged in to a computer, tablet or phone.

What about images taken on a digital still camera? There are a few options here: you could take additional memory cards and keep them stored in separate bags. Or if you plan on taking a laptop with you, you could connect your camera and upload your images to your laptop regularly. If you don’t plan on taking a laptop, you could take an external hard drive or some USB sticks and utilise your hotel’s business centre to connect your camera and save your images to your external hard drive or USB sticks.

Finally, add to your overall packing list the items you need to take with you to back up each of your devices – additional memory cards, USB cords, external hard drive, laptop or tablet and battery charger for your camera battery.

In our next blog post, we will discuss things to consider when taking photos while you are travelling.