Managing your photos while traveling can be a challenge, especially when you’re dealing with large batches of images from a single shoot. Whether you’re on a multi-day excursion or just out for a quick day trip, having a solid backup and organization plan is key.
Coming to you from Mark Denney, this practical video explores the simple steps he takes to keep his photos secure and organized while traveling. Denney starts by creating a dedicated folder on his laptop for each trip, naming them by location and date, such as “Colorado Fall Tours 2024.” Inside, he further organizes by day, making it easy to locate files when he’s ready to process them later. He emphasizes not importing everything into Lightroom at once—a mistake that can clutter your catalog with subpar images.
Instead, Denney goes through each day’s shoot and selectively imports only the best images. He explains that doing this helps avoid overloading Lightroom with thousands of unnecessary photos, which can slow down the workflow. This targeted importing ensures that only the images worth editing make it into his catalog, keeping things streamlined and manageable.
Denney’s backup method is equally straightforward. After transferring each day’s shots to his laptop, he backs up the entire folder to a small, rugged external drive. This gives him three copies of each image—one on the SD card, one on his laptop, and one on the external drive. He never wipes his SD cards until he’s back home, which adds another layer of security. Once home, he transfers the images to a dedicated annual backup drive, labeled by year. Each year’s drive gets a duplicate copy that he stores in a safe.
His culling process begins once the files are organized. He opens Lightroom, imports just the images he wants to edit, and skips the rest. Denney prefers to work with only a handful of selected images per day rather than sifting through hundreds of variations in Lightroom. He’s quick to acknowledge that his method may not be the most sophisticated, but it’s effective for him and minimizes wasted time.
Denney also touches on the benefits of using bracketed exposures and highlights how he evaluates shots to choose which ones are worth processing. He aims for well-balanced light and cloud formations, looking for the frames that best capture the scene’s mood. His approach emphasizes thoughtful selection over bulk importing, which he believes leads to more focused editing and a cleaner Lightroom catalog. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Denney.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, "Photographing the World: Japan II - Discovering Hidden Gems with Elia Locardi!”
