How to Organize your Photography Content

Sep 30, 2022

THE Austin Photographers Blog

As promised in the last post we will be going over my favorite subject here, organization! I think organization is key when starting a photography business, or any business, or even as a basic life rule. Organization can save you time, make you more efficient, and save you from bad customer experiences. I have saved and organized every single photo I ever shot. I like to do this in case a client misplaces their photos (which they always do) and I can easily send the content back to them even if it’s years later. Clients are always impressed that I still carry their content and it is an easy thing you can do to get a good review or build a lasting relationship. You can also use this content for yourself if you need an extra piece of footage or a photo for a social media post. Possibly one day you can use an old photo to convince a client to hire you because you covered the same event space or maybe one day you can use some random footage you got in Nashville in a video project. I am not saying you need to save and archive every possible megabyte of data, but it is best to create and maintain an archive system early. We will also be going over file structure for photo and video editing and some tips I think will be helpful.

 

Let’s start with saving your content to a hard drive and creating your first archive system. There’s a lot of different ways you can go about file structuring, labeling, and even where you save the content. The best possible way to never lose your data is to save on two physical drives in two different locations, but who has the time for that? As your first archive system I think it is perfectly fine to save to 1 large hard drive (4-6 terabytes) and have it near your computer at all times. I’ve had the same 8T WD hard drive for over 6 years now with 0 issues (I even dropped it a few times). You can always use cloud storage as an option but this will cost you both in time and money in the long run. The upload and download speeds on any cloud solution will always be much much slower than saving to a nearby hard drive. Also, the costs associated with online storage will only increase while physical drives can be paid off immediately. You can use just one hard drive for your first year but I would recommend you get a second hard drive and back your content up on both hard drives. While setting up your first archive system it is a great idea to create a spreadsheet (I use google sheets) which lists out all of your content. This makes it easy to search for content by typing in a client's name or the date it was shot on. The more information you add here the better. Simply label the physical hard drive with a sticky note or a sticker and add that name to the spreadsheet with the related contents. You will always know where your content is even before you have to plug in a hard drive. 

 

Now that your hard drive is set up and you have a spreadsheet created we can talk about file structure. I label my main folders with the date in front followed by the client's name and finally the event type. Here is an example (2022.08.22 John Doe Birthday). This puts the content in an order that I like, which is when the shoot was done. I do this so I can always find the most relevant up to date content that I can post on social media. This may not make sense for you and your folder names will vary. Inside these main folders you will have sub folders, my sub folders are set up as follows; For video I have Footage, Audio, Music, Assets, Premiere Pro, Export. For Photography I have RAW, Lightroom, Export. Of course you will create your own folder structure based on your needs but creating this structure early on and keeping it consistent will ensure that you can go into any project and be able to find what you need. This is especially important for video editing. When you import footage, download a song, or import templates, it is best to put the contents in these folders immediately so you know exactly where they are when you come back to a project. You will sometimes have so much content for a video that you will lose things or it becomes difficult to locate them if you change the file location or structure. I can go into a project from years ago that's been moved around on several hard drives, and still be able to easily locate the content and start working on it. Anyway, create a file structure and stick to it. 

 

Hard Drive speed also plays a factor in organization. Having a large slow hard drive is great for storing your completed projects on, but is a terrible idea to edit on. You should absolutely be editing any current projects on a fast drive such as an M.2 or SSD. I would recommend you get a 1 terabyte fast internal drive (or even a 2 terabyte if you have the extra money). You will be able to save multiple current projects on these drives which you can offload to the archive drive when completed. Following a routine of immediately putting any project you just shot onto the fast drive, editing the project, then backing it up onto the archive drive when finished is extremely important. Staying consistent with this routine will keep you organized and you will never misplace any files. You will always be able to send over your clients contents if they misplace them, find the contents you need for a post, or dig up unused contents to make a new video or gallery for your client. All of this can result in extra money, building a strong client base, or netting you some great reviews and feedback. 

 

 Organization doesn’t start and end with your media though, you also need to organize and maintain your clients, payments, scheduling, and much more. Paying monthly for a CRM will one day be useful, but if you are just starting out it is perfectly fine to use free applications. You can create a word document or Google Spreadsheet for your clients, use Google or Apple calendar to keep track of upcoming shoots, and use Paypal to create invoices and track payments. I personally use Google Calendar to keep me on track of just about everything in my life. If any thought comes to my mind while I am out and busy, I can make a note on Google calendar and it will notify me when I am back in the office and can deal with it. It of course keeps me up to date with all upcoming shoots. You can have all of the clients info in the notes section, the address in the map section, and can even link to a Google Doc you created for something like a shot-list. I am not sure what other people are using to keep them in check with all of the tasks they have every day, but I think Google Calendar is a useful tool. I would also recommend Pixieset for sending client galleries, sending pre-written contracts, creating questionnaires, and much more. This post is not sponsored by any of these companies… I wish!

 

All of these steps and systems are of course my way of doing things. I created this system by watching Youtube videos, talking with other photographers, and while working at various studios. This is a general guide of how to quickly set up a strong archive system and you will learn to build your own by finding out how others maintain their content. It does not matter how you do it but just that you do it. Anyway that is all for this post, please let me know if you have any questions about organization, creating an archive system, or keeping track of shoots or clients. As always we will be going more into depth with these subjects while hitting on other subjects in the future. 

 

Written by Zack Tullier owner and primary photography of Saturn Photography

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