How long to keep wedding pictures

[bondarnes]

Originally Posted by Michelle Allmon

Werd, Don. *giving dap*

???? Please elucidate.

[DeLeon]

A contract is a contract...she doesnt have to do anything she doesnt want to.

As far as deleting the files, I don't think that is a good idea. Storage is so cheap these days, that it would be a mistake for me to delete photos. I keep a DVD of the images at my home, and a DVD at another location. I also have several external HDs that I back up to at 2am every day. Obviously, in 3yrs of business I don't have near the amount of images as Don, but I hope to reach that level one day. Maybe on that day I can bring out an ancient DVD and see where I started.

[Gordon]

I certainly sympathize with those that want to protect their professional appearance, by controlling how prints of their work get made. Makes a lot of sense. Contracts can be written any way you like and people can sign them and agree to those images being destroyed in 6 months. People are adults and can enter into any arrangements they like.

With that said though, I think there is something of a bidirectional expectation of professionalism. If you want to protect your reputation and control the images, then you should somewhere along the line be expected to actually maintain those family memories for your clients. Some day, maybe at their 50th wedding anniversary, they might well want prints. An ethical approach to that would be to either maintain those original files or provide them to them. Again though, contracts can be worded any way the parties involved want them to be. It's your friend's business after all. If it isn't really a business and she doesn't particularly care to build a client base, then the argument for protecting the quality of her images seems to weaken a shade.

Professionalism doesn't just stop at not letting people get a hold of the negatives, it implies providing the full professional service to the customers. There's an opportunity if someone is really wanting to be a professional photographer to view each wedding client as the start of a long term and fruitful repeat business - baby portraits, family portraits, senior portraits, future weddings etc. Destroying negatives a few months in doesn't seem to be the best way to forging that lifetime business relationship.

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by Gordon

Some day, maybe at their 50th wedding anniversary, they might well want prints. An ethical approach to that would be to either maintain those original files or provide them to them.

Hmmm. Thinking about this from the brides POV. I dont have any negatives from my wedding or bridals. I also wasnt able to order some of the prints at the time. The photog we used only held negs for 6 months. Some of those shots are just gone. No one has them. Im not thinking he's a crook, Im thinking if I wanted to be certain I had them, I should have paid for the prints.

Ethical doesnt seem like exactly the right word. Storing everything is an excellent way to cover your butt legally, so we hold onto the files as long as humanly possible. Store them on a CD just in case. The photographer is not ethically responsible for the brides ability to purchase.

[prncfarquad]

gordon / holly

both of your thoughts are very well said. I have sent several of the opinions to my friend and I think she is leaning towards keeping the negatives on DVD instead of deleting.

My friend has a very black / white approach to everything in her life no gray areas allowed. So reading your comments have shown her the "gray" areas of this topic to consider. I personally Keep every picture I take...some not worth the energy it took to release the shutter but I do keep them cause you never know when one might come in handy for a project :)

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

Ethical doesnt seem like exactly the right word. Storing everything is an excellent way to cover your butt legally, so we hold onto the files as long as humanly possible. Store them on a CD just in case. The photographer is not ethically responsible for the brides ability to purchase.

You are right, ethical isn't the right word. maybe 'not doing the bare minimum possible for your customers' would be closer to the point I'm trying to make.

Deleting all of the originals within 6 months, with no option for the customer to obtain those originals seems like doing pretty much the minimal required. It certainly isn't going above and beyond, or delighting the customer, or a whole variety of other buzzword terms used to describe techniques for building and mataining customer relationships. Particularly when the total cost of archiving and maintaining those files is maybe a few dollars per client.

Maybe there is no tangible benefit in terms of additional sales after that 6 month window. Maybe all you are buying is good will and potential additional business, along with a marketing bullet to differentiate you from the competition.

In at least one case, I do know someone who kept those negatives for every job he's ever shot and has been able to provide re-prints. Actually two - because Don mentioned doing much the same.

[toverman]

I've made an effort to keep all the for-client images I've taken "forever," which means storing them on at least a DVD if not also on an off-site server.

[bondarnes]

You should see how much space 35 years worth of negatives takes up. And DVDs are a little more compact, but not much.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by bondarnes

You should see how much space 35 years worth of negatives takes up. And DVDs are a little more compact, but not much.

Yup. it requires work and space. At the other extreme, you could just incinerate them all every 6 months. Which approach do you think has the potential to lead to happier customers ?

Particularly in the digital case, you are already backing them up and storing them correctly for the first 6 months (least I'd hope so) so it should be more work to purge than maintain them. 1Tb of offsite storage isn't particular large or expensive to maintain any more. (about a cubic foot for a decent RAID system and a few hundred dollars)

That's easily enough for 1 wedding a week for a year (assuming a fairly enthusiastic and unedited 400 pictures per wedding and 52 of them a year)

[Norma_S]

I'm currently archiving all of mine on a NAS RAID. I do have questions for those who choose to archive your customers' images on DVD rather than on a disc drive.

1. Do you store the DVDs in a safe place and hope that years later, if you ever needed them again, that the data on the disc has not corrupted?
2. Or, do you plan to duplicate them periodically to ensure the integrity of the data?

Norma

[DeLeon]

Originally Posted by Norma_S

I'm currently archiving all of mine on a NAS RAID. I do have questions for those who choose to archive your customers' images on DVD rather than on a disc drive.

1. Do you store the DVDs in a safe place and hope that years later, if you ever needed them again, that the data on the disc has not corrupted?
2. Or, do you plan to duplicate them periodically to ensure the integrity of the data?

Norma

This keeps me up at night

[bondarnes]

Originally Posted by Norma_S

I'm currently archiving all of mine on a NAS RAID. I do have questions for those who choose to archive your customers' images on DVD rather than on a disc drive.

Norma

We archive close to one TB of images per year. I burn each memory card direct to a DVD straight out of the camera. This becomes my "negatives" so to speak.

Those images are then downloaded to our imaging workstation which only has two 160 GB hard drives. Somewhere between two and six months later when all orders have been placed we burn a second DVD from that session of all images from that session that remain on the computer. We file this DVD in the session envelope with the original DVD and a copy of the clients order.

Storage on this computer becomes a problem during our busy times so we are replacing one of the hard drives with a 1TB hard drive. Hopefully this will allow us to leave files on the computer longer.

At my age I don't plan to duplicate the DVDs. It has been my experience that less than one percent place an additional order after one year. After five years it is less than .1 percent.