These are the results from week six of Project 365, in which I attempt to portray a year in photos (by taking at least one photo per day). Week 6 was in the middle of May and features a variety of images. View the photos after the cut:
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My office for my day job is across the street from a Burger King. It’s not the healthiest of options, but I’ll eat there occasionally. Last week I noticed this new sign on the door:
As a private business, Burger King is certainly welcome to set their own policies. But I have to wonder… are they that uptight about lawsuits that they’re going to prohibit photography in a fast food restaurant. I doubt I would’ve been taking many gallery-worthy photos at my local BK, but their policy turns me off as a photographer and as a customer. I’d urge other photographers to choose alternate fast food instead of support a company that won’t allow photography.
These are the results from the fifth week of Project 365, in which I attempt to portray a year in photos (by taking at least one photo per day). Week 5 (early May) includes several images from around the house as I was restricted following some surgery. View the photos after the cut:
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I suffered a hard drive failure yesterday. I’ve been meaning to write a long post explaining my storage and backup methods, and I suppose this would be a great time to do so, since my methods were put to the test (and passed). My system isn’t overly complicated, and probably could be enhanced, but here it is:
My primary photo storage is on the internal hard drive of my PC. This is where images are transferred from the card reader, this is where they are cataloged, and this is where I make all edits.
My first backup location is an external hard drive. The external drive is a copy of the photos stored on my PC. When I download images from the card reader, I also make a copy to the external hard drive.
My secondary backup method is burning DVDs which are then stored offsite. This is the “last resort” backup, intended for use if something were to happen to my home (fire, major theft, etc). I burn DVDs after photos have been processed and cataloged, and store the DVDs in a relatively secure offsite location.
Yesterday I got back into town from vacation. As I was preparing to shoot a wedding last night, I noticed my external hard drive wasn’t available and the lights were dark. Further troubleshooting indicated a drive failure. I’d purchased the drive about two months ago at Costco. I probably could’ve gotten it a few dollars cheaper online, but one of the reasons I shop at Costco is their awesome returns/exchange policy. Today I drove to Costco, told them what happened, and they promptly gave me a refund for the full price of the drive. I picked up a new drive and was on my way in about 10 minutes.
My files? They’re now happily copied over to the new backup drive. With my backup system of two copies onsite and one copy offsite, a single drive failure will never mean data loss.
The last couple weeks have been a bit slow on the commercial front, but I’ve been doing plenty of photo-related work. Last Wednesday was Ignite Portland 3, a gathering of Portlanders to share burning ideas. The folks with the Legion of Tech asked me to be the “official” photographer (though in reality, everyone is welcome and encouraged to take photos). I shot a few hundred photos of the event and pared it down to 80-some photos in this Flickr set. The interior lighting was definitely darker than last time and it shows in the pictures.
There’s a new Portland-related blog in town called OurPDX, and my friend Betsy approached me about licensing some photos for the header on their site. I was happy to do so; based on the folks involved I expect the website will grow into something great.
