This week I read an article about a California couple whose camera bag was stolen while they were enjoying a day at Disneyland. In it were all the memory cards they owned filled with every last photo and video they'd taken since their baby girl was born. They are now pleading with the public via social media for those cards to be returned. This sad story got me thinking about our memories and how misguided many of us are about how to properly store and archive our photos.

First and most importantly, memory cards aren't ideal for long-term storage of your photos. They're small, easily lost and/or stolen and are more fragile than, say, an external hard drive. If you DO choose to use them as long-term storage and they are the ONLY place you have your photos, then by all means, store them some place secure, like an in-home fire-proof safe or in a bank deposit box. Carrying around and traveling with your entire photo collection of your first born baby in your camera bag is a disaster waiting to happen. And in this couple's case, DID happen.

Second, and I've written about it before, your photos need to be backed up in several locations. For instance, an external hard drive at home, an external hard drive at a friend or neighbor's home, prints of your 5-star photos and somewhere in the cloud. This means that if your hard drive crashes or your house burns down, you'll always have another copy of your photos accessible elsewhere. All too often, when disaster strikes, we see on the news that the main possession people come back to find are their photos and the memories and comfort they provide.

Third, so many of us harbor stress and anxiety around losing our photos, yet don't take the proper steps to back them up. It's not rocket science and does take a little effort, but once you have a solid back-up system in place, you can rest easy knowing that you'll never lose all those precious memories. And removing even one source of stress in our lives can make a HUGE difference!

As tempting as these Groupon and Living Social offers might appear, you are trusting these companies with your precious memories. You ship your photos, home movies, slides or negatives away, trust the provider to handle them with care and return them safely back to you. Oftentimes, my clients are stressed just imagining shipping these items away; however, did you know that many of these companies further outsource your memories? Sometimes even to foreign shores? A quick scan of Yelp reviews for these companies are enough to keep me away from their tempting offers.

While I know the price is right, your memories are one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable, so isn't it more valuable to place them into hands you can trust?

If high-speed scanning and/or slide, negative, and home movie conversions are what you're looking for, trust me, your certified photo organizer, when I recommend you avoid those Groupon deals and stick with a highly reputable company such as Fotobridge. I have personally met the owner and am looking forward to seeing her again at the APPO Conference this week. I know that once your memories arrive at their New Jersey facility, that is where they stay. I know your memories are handled with kid gloves from the minute they arrive. I know they have NEVER lost anyone's memories. And I know, while you might never see their services discounted on Groupon, you will NEVER be disappointed with the quality and level of service you'll receive when working with them.

So give the gift of scanning this Valentine's Day. Any orders* placed using the code McCourt01 will receive an extra set of JPG DVDs at NO COST. Hooray! It's no Groupon, but you can rest assured your precious memories will be in the best hands!

*Code expires Tuesday, February 18th

This was the scene in the court next to mine earlier this evening. A house engulfed in flames in a matter of minutes. Thankfully, the two residents who were home at the time got out safely. But guess what was the first thing she mentioned after saying all was lost? Her PICTURES. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when tragedy strikes, what people want most are their pictures, not their clothes, their jewelry, their furniture. Their PICTURES. And sadly, so many of us don’t take the time to BACK UP our photo collections until it’s too late. 

Here are a few steps to take to protect your non-digital photo collection:

1) For the boxes and bags of prints you have from the pre-digital days, possibly scattered all over your house, gather them all in one place.
2) Next, commit the time to sorting through and organizing them.
3) Once organized, put them in an archival storage box that is easily accessible to grab in case of emergency. 
4) Another option with prints is to hire a reputable company like FotoBridge to scan them all to digital so they can be backed up along with the rest. 

For your digital photo collection, it’s common advice now to back up your digital files in at least three places. Two of those should be off site and at least one as far removed from you geographically as possible should disaster strike.

Here are several options for backing up your digital files:

1) Use an external hard drive (EHD) like PictureKeeper, that makes it ridiculously easy to collect ALL the digital images from your computer. Then keep the EHD either in a fire-proof safe, a safe deposit box or even send to a friend to store for you.
2) Use a cloud storage service like Carbonite or This Life which will cover you for remote location storage.
3) Burn your images to archival-quality DVDs like these from MAM-A and, again, put them in a fire-proof safe, a safe deposit box or a friend's house. 

I'm in this business because I care about protecting your family's cherished memories. I don't want to see another family in tears because they've lost everything, including their photos. I implore you to develop a back-up plan for your photo collection in the event of a catastrophe. We never want to think it could happen to us, but there's no harm in planning for the worst. If tragedy were to strike, you’ll be crying about your lost “stuff,” but feeling grateful that your photos are safe off site and can be recovered with ease.

This post has joined the Let's Get Organized Blog Hop over at Dinosaur Superhero Mommy's site.