Imagine this. It’s a beautiful sunny day, you’re a photographer and you’ve had a busy few days traveling and taking lots of amazing photos. After you land in your final destination of the trip, you watch the landscape go by as you’re driven to your hotel. You are looking forward to relaxing in your room before exploring the local area. Once you’ve taken the room key from the smiling and welcoming hotel receptionist, you glance down at your camera, and… it’s gone. Along with all of your photos.
I didn’t need to imagine this. It happened to me. Thinking back to that moment still fills my heart with dread.
Back in early summer, I was in Paris for a shoot. I’d traveled to London from the U.S. and then hopped over to Paris to carry out the most amazing brief. As a travel and lifestyle photographer, this was my dream.
Everything during the shoot went so well. I was super happy with how the photographs had turned out. There had been unique moments of inspiration and I couldn’t wait to begin editing.
But it would have to wait. The trip had been amazing, but I didn’t have much time between the end of the shoot and when I had to check in for my Eurostar back to London.
So, I packed everything up and headed to Gare du Nord. When I came out of St Pancras station, I hailed an Uber to go to Shoreditch, where I was staying.
In the car, I was still in freelancer mode, thinking about how I was going to edit my client’s photographs while ticking off everything I was going to do here in the U.K.
The car pulled up to the hotel and I jumped out to fetch my suitcase from the trunk. Then I hurried to check-in, as I wanted to get a head start on editing before heading out again.
That’s when it happened. I took the keycard from the hotel receptionist and went up to my room. Before getting to work on editing the photos, I wanted to photograph the room — those travel photographer instincts kicked in, as usual — so I looked for my camera. After searching everywhere, I realized it was gone, along with all of the photos I took at the shoot in Paris.
My heart sank, my stomach knotted. I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find it.
Contacting Uber and the police proved to be unhelpful. On any other shoot, I would have backed up my photos as soon as I’d finished. That’s my routine: finish the shoot, move the photos over to my LaCie hard drive, and when I’m ready to edit, I import them straight into Lightroom.
This was the one time I broke from my usual routine.
When I finally realized I wasn’t going to be getting my camera and photos back, I called my client in Paris. They were so understanding and allowed me to travel back to Paris to redo the shoot.
Although I was so lucky that I could go back to reshoot the project, trying to replicate the unique, in-the-moment shots I’d got from the first shoot was tough. Not to mention traveling back to another country meant I had to rework my entire timeline.
I learned the hard way, but you can learn from my mistake. When taking photos for a project, for work, or precious memories, always back them up, and always have a routine.
When traveling, a hard drive is so compact and portable. It won’t take up too much room in your hand luggage, so you can take it everywhere with you. It also means you don’t have to store lots of things on your computer, which can slow it down.
Remember: a camera can be replaced, but your beautiful photographs and precious mementos cannot. Make a habit of backing them up. Invest in a reliable (and portable) hard drive so you can keep those memories forever.
World Backup Day is March 31, 2025, and to help you make the most of it, we’ve compiled our favorite backup solutions to consider here.
