How To Backup Your Photos After The Photo Shoot With Sugarsync
Short story: Click this link now and you are safe.
Complete story:
Nerdy computer scientists say, that nothing exists digitally unless it is stored in two physically separate locations. Imagine the precious photographs that you’ve just shoot, a whole days effort, a lot of unique pictures that would be impossible to reshoot and all of a sudden – they don’t exist anymore.
Of course that’s our photographers nightmare, but I’ve seen it happen a number of times already with fellow photographers. I’m always feeling soooo sorry for them – on an emotional level, really.
So backing up photo files as soon as possible is absolutely crucial. But on the other hand – who really got time to backup the files onto another hard drive and then care that this hard drive is shipped to another physical place? Me? No sorry, I’m already busy with my next shoot. You?
Here’s what I do about it: There’s this nifty little application named Sugarsync which sits on the menu bar (Mac) or task bar (PC). Sugarsync shuffles tons of data quickly from my laptop into an secure online storage and onto my workstation at the office. Fully integrated into my photography workflow; Fully on autopilot. I have to do.... nothing. Ain’t that cool?
Go check out this video and I will show you how I use it:
If you think Sugarsync is for you – and I’m absolutely sure it is – then please follow my affiliate link:
It takes you directly to a page where you can start a free trial. You will be amazed how smoothly this thingy is working for you. This application is is online storage done right. You will feel how good it feels to know that your precious photos are backed up secure.
So stop worrying about backup, start thinking about your next cool photo shoot.
Good light!
-- Michael
Hard to get my thick German accent? Here's the transcript!
Hey fellow photographer! How's it going?
I'm Michael Zelbel.
In this video I will show you a very quick and easy
one-light lighting setup.
I'm using the setup in order to warm up my models before the shoot.
That's very useful especially if you are shooting nude photos,
and you need to get the model comfortable in front of your lens.
The model we are warming up today is Cousin Emily.
You might go like: "Hey come on, Cousin Emily is so
used to photographs. She is a real pro. You don't need to warm her up!"
But, that's wrong actually! I think it's a very good practice
to warm up your model.
If the model is not yet comfortable in front of your lens
and in front of your lights you will read that
in her body language and in her facial expressions.
That gives you results which you usually don't want to have.
So better warm her up and make a sort of artistic shooting
with a few little photos upfront.
Usually you don't have so much time and resources
ahead of your actual shoot that is why I think you should
go for a super simple one-light lighting setup.
Something which is bullet proof, which definitely
produces good results which the model will like,
which is very easy to light and which gives you the
ability to shoot her nude but which does not show anything.
This is what we are going to do.
We achieve that by covering the model with
a big piece of silk so she is hidden underneath the silk.
Let's have a look at the actual lighting setup.
We have a simple black backdrop which is made up
out of two black curtains.
Those curtains have a gap in the middle, right in the middle.
The model is placed in the middle and she is
pretty close to that black curtain, 1.50 meter away.
That's not so much distance.
She is covered with a big piece of white silk,
which is thin enough to let some light go through,
but thick enough to - under normal lighting conditions -
not show anything.
The one speedlight that we use is placed right in
the gap of this two backdrops.
It's in this case a speedlight with guide number 58.
It's dialed down to 1/16th of its power,
zoomed back to 24mm so it got a broad cone of light,
which makes sure the light goes everywhere in the silk,
no matter how the model is posing.
The camera is a little bit further away,
4 meters or 13 feet and it's on standard settings,
1/200s, f/11, ISO400 and daylight white balance.
That's already it. Not so much to setup.
But it's ideal for warming up your model, not only a shy model.
The model may or may not wear underwear,
that really makes no difference.
What makes a bit of difference is the hairdo.
If she is tying up her hair that really makes for some nice,
fancy shapes underneath the silk.
Some mistake that I made in this little shoot was
I had Cousin Emily wearing high heels and jewelry.
It's not such a big difference but on this silhuetted photos
it does not really match the emotion of the photos.
Wearing nothing would be much better.
Especially if you use a little trick:
You can, for instance, turn around the photos 180 degrees
and then it looks like a sort of cocoon.
If she is then inside this cocoon she looks like a
sort of embryo, actually an embryo with boobs,
but still something like an alien embryo.
And then high heels and jewelry, you know,
doesn't really match. But whatever. It's just for warming up. I don't care.
You can give your model permission to do all sorts of
wired poses underneath the silk, wired expressions.
That makes her free to later on also do wired poses.
That really warms her up.
It's ideal for that because she is so covered.
If you still say: "Michael, bullshit, you don't really
need to warm up your model so much!"
I would ask you to do ONE thing, because then
for sure you haven't done one thing:
Have somebody taking nude photos of yourself!
And I really mean that. Do it! Do it at least one time!
I don't blame you if you never did it, but now go
and ask a photography buddy to shoot some nude
photos of yourself.
Because this way you experience how exposed a nude
model feels in front of a lens.
Then you will know that even a seasoned pro of a model
feels quite exposed and it's a good idea to make her
comfortable and warm her up.
Alrighty! Enough for this week, now please click on the like button,
click on the plus one button, drop a comment,
and come back next Thursday!
I wish you good light!
Hi Michael,
Excellent post. I spent 15 years in IT before moving to photography, and believe me, the nerds are right. It's not whether you disk will fail, but WHEN it will fail, so a good backup is essential. Photographers generate a lot of large files during a shoot, and a reliable fire and forget backup system means you can concentrate on your photography rather than worry about backups. Personally, I've been using Carbonite for a few years - does the same as Sugarsync, but it's based around an account for a machine, rather than a person. It also allows unlimited backups which is a real help with all the data I generate.
Yes, carbonite is great too. I personally did not test it yet. For unlimited online backup space I am using Mozy 2.0 - also a really cool service.
SugarSync, Carbonite and Mozy are all great services. They all offer slightly different things. I found a great site showing a comparison of the "Top Ten" online storage providers that really helped me out. Personally I ended up going for LiveDrive.
Actually I stopped using Mozy because they changed their business model. They don't offer unlimited storage anymore. I am back to the old, manual "copy to a second drive" workflow
Thanks for a bit of information on the Sugarsync application. I guess my only concern would be how well the privacy is on the online storage site. Is it secure? The only thing worst than losing all my material is someone I don't know having access to it.
I guess that's a valid concern, cousin. Even in the most trustworthy company in the end it human beings like me and you who are working there. They have their very own agenda and we don't know how that is looking like.
If I shoot my regular sort of photos, I am not afraid about anybody abusing them. However, if I would ever shoot photos for the latest top secret book of a famous superstar, then I would probably keep all things under control personally and refrain from uploading anything to other companies servers.
I knew nothing about Sugarsync before losing a ton of my personal photos. Thank you for posting this, I am definitely going to incorporate this with my new files.
Denver Computer Repair
Great post. Thanks for shaing the information on the Sugarsync application. Its really an great application.
Many thanks to you. Sugarsync very helped me
Excellent post thanks for sharing it with us.