What is a DPH?

What is a DPH?

The acronym DPH is one professional photo organisers like us use frequently with our clients and our colleagues. But what exactly is it? How do you get one? Where do you put it? Why should you use one? Those are all great questions. As event managers in our past lives we love addressing the traditional project management type questions of WHEN, WHERE, WHO, WHAT and WHY, so let’s apply those to this topic!

WHAT? DPH stands for Digital Photo Hub. To break that down further;

  • Digital – this is applicable to any digital file be that .jpg .tiff .heif or other image or video file types that was generated by your smart phone, digital camera, tablet or scanner
  • Photo – you could argue that this is a poor choice of word here and it really should be ‘Memorabilia’.  I even had a client contact me to ask if they should include their wedding video as part of their DPH. So while it seemed clear to me that all memorabilia should be included in a DPH, it wasn’t the case for one person and I am sure she was not alone in this misunderstanding.  For example you could also include scanned historical diaries or letters as .pdf files in your DPH along side video and image files of various formats per previous
  • Hub – this could for all intents and purposes say collection, centre, focus, essence or even hotbed as my beloved thesaurus suggests but HUB I think suits perfectly… per dictionary.com below, I particularly love that it calls it the authority.

hub – a center around which other things revolve or from which they radiate; a focus of activity, authority, commerce, transportation, etc.

WHO? Ummm well….. EVERYONE…….oh ok then how about anyone with an interest in memory keeping for themselves and for their descendants should have a DPH

WHEN? Now, now, now, now! If you don’t have one, get one! We LOVE this post about how to choose the right DPH. As for how often you access your DPH this is completely unique for each person. If you are accessing your photo collection on a day to day basis then when = daily.  If you only do it once a month like me for my MOON Walk then when = monthly. Unless of course I am working on a special project for example a photo book

WHERE? This is an important one and again it is unique to you as an individual. When choosing a DPH we highly recommend you use the criteria outlined here where choose a DPH that is dedicated, intentional, accessible, high capacity, durable and predictable

WHY?  Quite simply if you want to be able to backup your precious memories and protect them, then the easiest way to do that is to create a DPH.  If everything is in one spot then backing up can be simplified. As opposed to the alternative where some of your digital photos are on this computer, others on that laptop, some photos on this hard drive, others on a handful of USB’s, some pictures on those CD’s, others on floppy disc, some videos on VHS, others on DVD, some images on that tablet others on this tablet, some image files on your smart phone, others on your partner’s phone. In an emergency situation can you imagine trying to gather all those items together? Under pressure would you even be able to think of all those places?

In our next post we will give you an overview of my own person DPH. How I chose it and how I use it. Until then, have magical day!

4 Comments
  • The Filing Fairies | Master your memory keeping
    Posted at 11:09h, 21 May

    […] that no app or program is the best place for your photos and this cannot and should not replace a Digital Photo Hub (DPH) and using a 3-2-1 back up method.  This is just a tool that can help make recording the […]

  • The Filing Fairies | A Special Event Photo Book RECIPE
    Posted at 13:42h, 08 July

    […] to the relevant area of a Digital Photo Hub and review images at […]

  • The Filing Fairies | The Summary Issue
    Posted at 14:42h, 05 November

    […] Your digital photo hub is a designated location, such as an external hard drive, where all your original digital and scanned photos live. Copy your digital photos and videos from all your various devices including phones, camera cards, USB sticks, etc. Then begin to sort by date or theme, or whichever organising structure you’ve determined. As you scan prints, add those image files to the hub.  Read more about Digital Photo Hub’s here  […]

  • The Filing Fairies | TEMPLATE
    Posted at 09:43h, 18 December

    […] Your digital photo hub is a designated location, such as an external hard drive, where all your original digital and scanned photos live. Copy your digital photos and videos from all your various devices including phones, camera cards, USB sticks, etc. Then begin to sort by date or theme, or whichever organising structure you’ve determined. As you scan prints, add those image files to the hub.  Read more about Digital Photo Hub’s here  […]