From a post I put together for Black Star Rising.

As I unpacked my gear at a recent photo shoot for a local publication, I suddenly flew into panic mode: I realized I had left my card wallet on my workstation 30 minutes away.

Then I remembered that I had a 2GB compact flash card in my glove compartment. I took a deep breath as a relieved smile spread across my face.

Ah, the comfort of having a backup plan.

Five Tips for Backing Up Your Business

Back in the days when I shot film for newspapers, I always kept a couple of rolls in my glove box — just in case I had to cover an accident or came upon a newsworthy scene. Fortunately for me, I carried this habit into the digital age.

Here are five tips for creating a backup plan for your photography business:

1. Back up images during shoots. Backing up your photos while in studio or on location is good practice. I always dump my photos onto my laptop during sessions. I also make another copy on an external hard drive. This way, I have three sets of photos when I finish the shoot — one on the cards, one on the laptop and another on the external hard drive. External hard drives aren’t very expensive, so be sure to invest in one and take it on all your shoots.
2. Back up your archived images. Hard drives will crash; it’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” When backing up my images, I go by the 3-2-1 rule – three sets of backups on two different media types, along with one off-site backup. There are a number of good solutions out there; options include hardware-based systems or uploading your files to server space. The key is to make multiple copies in different locations.
3. Back up your e-mail online. A few years back I set up a Gmail account to receive and archive copies of all my e-mails. It’s free for up to 7GB of server space and simple to set up. To keep clutter down, I’ve created filters that sort and/or block different kinds of e-mails. It’s a great way to keep an electronic paper trail, which is important to every business. It’s also easy to access on the go and doesn’t clog my hard drive.
4. Back up your data online. Many inexpensive services are available today to let you back up your data remotely. With most of them, you can upload any file type and then access it from your desktop, laptop or mobile device. It’s a great way to transfer large files to your clients without cutting into your bandwidth. I just upload a zip file and send the link to my client, who can then download the file. It also saves on shipping CDs or DVDs to clients.
5. Copyright your images. The ultimate backup plan — lasting, legal protection for your work. This was my New Year’s resolution, and I am happy to say I have been sticking with it. Once you incorporate the copyright process into your workflow, it’s quick and easy to do. Go here for more information about registering your photos; you’ll be glad you did.

Any other tips from your own experience? Feel free to post them in comments.

A few weeks back I was hired to create new promotional pieces for local Kansas City news station KCTV-5. The concept was to create new portraits of all the news anchors, meteorologists, news teams and the reporters.

I have to give a big shout out to Josh Fry for helping run the lights and haul gear, he was a tremendous help on the shoot and made everything run smooth. Armed with an Arri light kit consisting of one 1K light (covered in a full blue gel if memory serves) a 650 light (covered in a half blue) and a 5 in 1 reflector we bounced around from the news room to the studio to parts of Kansas City to capture all of the portraits.

Thanks for checking this out – Aaron Lindberg

Shot this behind the scenes video of two recent editorial fashion photo shoots here in Kansas City. The client hired me to create 2 looks of 3 different models, one in studio and the other on-location in the West Bottoms of Kansas City, Missouri. I by no means claim to be a great video shooter or video editor but these quick behind the scenes videos are becoming good practice for me to learn more about shooting and editing video through my DSLR. Thanks for taking a look at this, questions and comments are always appreciated.

Thanks for checking this out – Aaron Lindberg

Beauty pageant, beauty contest, Miss USA, Miss America, contests, pageantry

I photograph pageants…

…there I said it, I got it off my chest and pointed out the elephant in the room. I am certainly not embarrassed to say I shoot pageants, but not many outside of the industry know that I photograph them.

Now I know what you are thinking, visions of Little Miss Sunshine and all of the stereotypical cliches of what movies and TV have shown us over the decades are flashing through your mind and I thought the same thing when I was first approached to photograph my first pageant. I assumed there would be girls fighting backstage, sabotaging dresses, pulling hair or 5 year olds with spray on tans and big Texas hair loaded down with gobs of makeup. On the contrary it was not like this at all, things have been far from that.

It’s easy to point out the bad things that happen during pageants with all of the stereotypes surrounding this industry but what most people don’t see are the positive things that these ladies bring to the table. Everything from volunteering to spend their time with child cancer survivors, working at leukemia and lymphoma drives, participating to raise awareness for various other diseases to helping the homeless. To me, its amazing that these girls put in this much time to give to others and I must applaud their work.

With the crowning of Miss USA or Miss America this weekend (I still can’t keep them straight, its a lot like baseball or football with different leagues and divisions) I wanted to post to my blog and let the readers know that there is a lot going on behind the scenes of these pageants, more than what you see on TV. They do work hard for their titles and not all pageants are like Little Miss Perfect or Toddlers & Tiaras, these ladies are doing good things in the community and are not just pretty faces.

Thanks for checking this out – Aaron Lindberg