A lot has changed since, at the time we were living in a flat up in Edinburgh and we are now living down in a cottage in the Derbyshire Peak District and have a 15 month old daughter.  Life just seems to continue apace at an ever increasing velocity, I love it!

Our friend and fellow wedding photographer Paul Preacher was our photographer for the day, he did a great job and we have a wonderful set of photos to look back on.

It’s been an amazing three years and I can’t wait to discover what the future brings.

Happy anniversary my love!

I’m really pleased with the new set of images, brings back many happy memories for me of all the great weddings I have covered over the last few years.

If you are considering Free Range Photographic for your wedding the gallery should give you a really good idea for what to expect.

Head over to the gallery and take a look!

My memory card strategy

Ever since I started photographing weddings I have always used a greater number of smaller capacity memory cards rather than just one or two high capacity cards.  I do this so that in the worst case scenario where a card became corrupted and was unrecoverable then I will only have lost a smaller portion of the wedding photos.  Thankfully this situation has never happened to me and I hope that it never will.

I also only use high quality Sandisk extreme III memory cards – I wouldn’t think to let wedding photos near an el-cheapo card!  Sandisk cards have proven reliability and quality, that’s why I use them.

Until the photos from a wedding are safely transferred to my computer they stay physically on my person in a Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket memory card wallet that attaches to a belt loop on my trousers.

My backup strategy

Of equal importance is a backup strategy for after the wedding.  The first thing I do on returning from a wedding is to transfer the photos onto my computer.  The next thing I do is back them up onto DVD which are then sent off-site (to my Dad!) so that should there be a fire in my office then the original photos are still safe.

I use the online backup service carbonite which continually backs up all of my photos and I also run a nightly backup to an external disk.  This ensures that my in-progress work on the photos is saved.  Carbonite did save me once with some personal photos when the hard disk that they were on failed and was not recoverable – I was very glad that I had signed up to it then!  I was once told that there are two types of hard disk – those that have failed, and those that will!

Once editing is complete I copy the finished photos to another DVD and send that off-site.

Conclusion

I don’t think you can be careful enough with data security and backups.  I’m pretty happy with my strategy and I think that it covers pretty much any eventuality.  In summary it is:

• Use a greater number of smaller capacity cards
• Only use high quality branded cards
• Keep cards on your person until they have been safely backed up
• Backup off-site, online and locally before and after editing

What’s your data security and backup strategy?

I spent 10 years of my life living in Sheffield and know a lot of the surrounding area well, I have a great affinity for the region and just love the people down there. I can’t wait to get started covering weddings once the dust has settled on the move.

I would like to thank all of my Scotland-based clients – I have had a wonderful time and many happy memories from each and every one of your weddings. I am genuinely sad to be leaving Scotland, there is a lot that I will miss from covering weddings up here, to name just a few – Scottish generosity, kilts, great wildernesses, stunning castles, Lothian Chambers (definitely the most beautiful registry office!) and ceilidhs. Thank you all, it’s been great.

The areas I will be covering for weddings will be Derbyshire, Sheffield, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Stoke and the surrounding areas. Please get in touch if you are interested in booking Free Range Photographic for your wedding.