We’re frequently called upon by our clients to retrieve old photos for them. Perhaps a business portrait of an executive from last year, or maybe an image from an event we documented last decade. Whatever the request, we’re happy to take care of it and keep the cost to a minimum. It’s clear, though, that many clients assume it’s just a one-click task to retrieve image files, so they’re surprised to learn that it takes some time, and that there is some labor (and ultimately expense) involved. So allow me to explain exactly what goes in to finding a proverbial photographic needle in an ever-growing haystack.
Photography is changing, and changing fast. Eight years ago we were shooting film and just dipping our toes into the digital world. These days, though, digital is almost all we do. It’s what most clients ask for, and it’s great for fast turnarounds and getting images around the world almost instantly. The trouble when it comes to finding your photo, especially if it’s in the pre-digital era, or the time when we were transitioning from film to digital, is first determining whether the “original” is a film negative or a digital file.
The Film Way:
- If it’s a film negative you’re after, we head to the storage room and find your company’s file folder(s). Then it’s just a matter of sorting through the dozens, hundreds or even thousands of files to find the photos you’re looking for. (We certainly have our own tricks for making this as efficient as possible, but still: there are a lot of photos to go through.)
- Once we’ve retrieved your negatives it’s a matter of determining which frame is the one you want. We can make a contact sheet and let you choose anew. Or we can check the negatives for marks that indicate the likely selected frame. Or we can retrieve the original invoice to determine the frame from the print order. Remember, in pre-digital days, you had to purchase prints if you wanted to have your photo in hand.
- With the appropriate negative found, it’s time to make the scan or print–depending on your needs. Prints go out to our pro lab, and although rush service is available at an additional charge, it’s typically a three-day turnaround from negative to print. Scans can be done in-house or at the lab, depending on the resolution required. Again, labor and time are involved, so you can see how the task isn’t as simple as it may seem. Thank goodness for digital, right? Not so fast.
The Digital Way:
- The good news is that we’ve been shooting digitally long enough that, for the most part, since most image requests are for photos made within the last few years, the shots are almost always digital. The bad news is that digital files aren’t in a file cabinet or a nice neat envelope. They’re inside a computer, backed up onto an external disk drive, doubly backed up onto a series DVDs (because of the stability of optical media in comparison with magnetic media) and stored offline because of the massive capacity required. Why not store them all online, within my computer? Because I shoot a lot of pictures. A lot. Really. Small jobs are often hundreds of images. Most bigger ones number in the thousands. That’s a lot to keep track of, especially when file sizes get bigger and bigger every day. That makes it, although not exactly like finding a needle in a haystack, akin to finding a numbered needle in a stack of a whole lot of other numbered needles. There are a lot of points in there, and it’s going to hurt a little.
- If the image was made this year, it is still “online” in the system and relatively quick and easy to find. The index file will be uncovered almost instantly, which then requires simply pointing the index to the correct location where the backup of the high-resolution file lives. (Our customers shoot their own digital pictures with point and shoots, so they’re used to this process with vacation photos and birthday parties and the like. The thing they forget, though, is for every ten pictures they make, we make 100. That changes things.) Pointing to the high-res originals may involve putting an offline external hard drive back online. Or perhaps indexing the appropriate DVD on which the optical backup lives. Depending on the job, one method may be quicker than the other. Either way, it’s going to take a moment. Please be patient.
- The real trick is when what you’re after is a digital file made several years ago. We have indexes and guide files to direct us, but the bottom line is that the file lives on one of several hundred DVD backups, or one of several external hard drives. We can find it, and we will, using a deliberate trail of bread crumbs that point to the right file. It just may not be instantaneous. We want you to understand that so that you won’t be disappointed when we can’t get you your files literally on a moment’s notice. Especially if we’re out on a shoot when you call.
So don’t let this discourage you from asking us to retrieve your files. We really are happy to do it. This explanation is just so you’ll understand why it might take an hour or two or a day to get your photo. If you can give us a little lead time, it’s almost always $25 for file retrieval. If you need it literally asap and we have to drop everything to find it, there will be rush charges for the labor involved. (Industry standard tends to be 100% for next day, 200% for same day, and 300% for drop-everything-and-do-it-immediately.) But we don’t charge you an archive fee, storage fee or even a backup fee. Barring catastrophic acts of nature (which we also try to protect against) we’re keeping all those photo files safely, securely and pretty darn accessible just in case you call. So feel free to call. We’re happy to help–even if it’s just to be your “digital file cabinet.”
###
