3 Reasons Why Organizing Your Photo Archives Is Essential

You’ve poured your blood, sweat, and tears into your art. Now, it’s time to make sure it is preserved.

The other day, I found myself doing something incredibly boring. Very boring. After having a conversation with a friend of mine regarding what she should do with her old footage, it dawned on me that I hadn’t always been following my own advice. While my photo archives are backed up with the precision my OCD deserves, my video archives were in far less orderly condition. Partly, this is due to the fact that my filmmaking career spans three decades, which included various periods of disconnect and transition. So, I sat down in front of the computer and started going back through files spanning three decades—from the latest and greatest to those long-forgotten videos shot in a different time when I was a different man.

I wanted to have all of my output in a single place that would be easily accessible. You just never know when you’re going to bump into a valuable contact who’s going to ask you if you’ve ever done a specific thing in a specific way, and you know that you did that thing once 15 years ago, but you have no idea how to find the proof in your archives. Well, that’s where organization comes in. And that’s why I’ve found myself spending countless hours over the last two weeks going through every file on my multiple hard drives and reorganizing them for easier access. It’s a painstaking process now. But, oh boy, is it necessary.

Going through this process has taught me three important lessons that should help me be far more efficient and organized in the next three decades of my career than I was in the first.

When It Comes to Filenames, Boring Is Good

I am a creative person. Of course, I am. That’s why I became a filmmaker and photographer. Letting my mind run with its creative urges is how I make my living. But, every now and then, I can take it too far. For example, going over all my old file names and realizing that, while naming that project “Chris’ Rad Supercool Jolly Project” might have given me a chuckle at the time, 20 years later, I have absolutely no idea that the title refers to a very straightforward interview of a man in his basement. So, as a result, I have to play every individual file to figure out what in the heck it is and which folder it belongs in. I’m sure, at the time, I was just having a bit of fun and could easily remember what “Chris’ Rad Supercool Jolly Project” referred to. But, two decades later, I have completely forgotten about both the project and the man in the basement. So, while not as fun, naming the file something a bit more sensible like “Interview of Man in Basement 2004” will help me quickly locate the clip when I need it down the line and allow me to identify it without needing to open the file to have a look.

Routine Is Your Friend

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve done a far better job organizing my still photography archives than my video archives. While my very early photo files were a bit disjointed, I very quickly learned the pleasure of a standardized folder structure. This was only helped when I moved over to Capture One years ago, which gave me a framework to start from and which I have kept standard ever since.

So, on the photo side at least, I have everything I’ve ever shot separated into the capture folder, the output folder, the project file, etc., going back for years—whether the photoshoot was a proper client job or just a photo walkabout I took at the beach. Then, the output folder is further separated by the size of the output files (high resolution, web resolution, sRGB/Adobe RGB, etc.). So, anytime someone requests usage of a specific image, I can easily track it down by the project name and date, then grab the size and type of file they need without having to do too much searching.

Because my video files have been subject to multiple disparate routines over the years, their locations were far less predictable. So, part of the process I’ve been going through with the most recent organization is to put everything into a set file folder structure that is standardized across all video projects. So, if I need to pull raw footage, finished edits, sound, music, etc., from any given project, finding it should now be a breeze. If only I had been smart enough to have done that from the beginning, I could have saved myself a great deal of time.

Duplicate Duplicate Duplicate

Of course, a well-organized archive doesn’t amount to much if an unforeseen event can wash it away with the tide. So, not only is having your archives organized important, but also having them replicated in multiple places is essential insurance for any artist.

My own backup strategy has always been as follows: My initial edit/processing of files is done on external SSDs or internal hard drives. If it’s an important project, I’ll likely duplicate the project files onto a secondary SSD or hard drive prior to beginning editing, just in case. Once a project is done and dusted, I will archive the entire project, including original RAWs, footage, project files, etc., onto a RAID storage system I have set up in my office. I even maintain the entire original project folder structure in the event I want to reopen the project later on and don’t want to go through the trauma of relinking files. A NAS-connected RAID storage system isn’t the fastest. I wouldn’t use it to edit off of, for example, so, if I wanted to resurrect an old job, I’d likely move it back to an SSD first. But the redundancy offered by the RAID system provides another layer of protection against drive failure.

The best of the best are then also saved to another smaller external hard drive with a large capacity. This is my “grab in case of fire” drive that has all the most important files in one place. “Best of the best” refers to the final outputs from all my projects. It doesn’t have all the original raw files and footage, but it does have the final products that I would need to send to a client, exhibition, etc.

Of course, since both the external drive and the RAID system live in my physical space, I also needed some offsite protection just in case. I accomplish this in two ways. First, that external drive, which holds the best of the best, is connected to a Backblaze account, which backs up the entire contents of that drive (and my computer hard drives) to offsite storage. Backblaze isn’t cloud storage in the sense of Dropbox or Google Drive. You don’t access the files from your computer. Rather, it’s a recoverable mirror image of all your files held on the Backblaze servers. So, in case something happens to that external drive in my office, I can recover all the data from the offsite Backblaze servers in a remote location.

On top of all that, I am in the process of putting my best of the best onto Google Drive as well. I’ve completed the process with my films. Now, I’ll do the same with my stills. Why? Well, because I personally use the Google Workspace products so often, the ease and convenience of using their cloud storage works well for my personal workflow. Also, unlike Backblaze, Google Drive gives me immediate access to the files themselves if I need them for editing on the go. I can already access my NAS storage devices remotely. But, having certain files ready and organized in Google Drive makes it even easier to access specific files quickly if I need to show a reference when on set or in a meeting or if I need to quickly send an asset when I'm away from the office.

How you choose to organize your backups will depend on your own workflow and needs. It’s certainly not free, so it pays to think through what is best for you. But whatever method you choose, it’s important to think through the most efficient way to protect all your hard work through the years and organize it in a way that makes it easy for you to find and utilize your files for years and years to come.