Thank you Linda Teather, Meg MacIntyre, and so many more of you for joining Kathy Stone, Peter Bennett, and me today. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to help more families feel comfortable capturing, preserving, and sharing their stories. Thank you for your added ❤️s to help others see this conversation, too. Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below. Projectkin programming is offered free with the kind support of our Patrons worldwide. Explore our story and join us 👇. September is Save Your Photos month in a campaign initiated in 2014 by The Photo Managers following Hurricane Sandy, the Joplin Tornados, and the Calgary Floods. During the month, they’ve been making a number of special resources available to remind communities of the importance of protecting our archives from loss due to floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and ordinary tech failures. Kathy’s guest, photographer and photo management expert Peter Bennett of FotoFlow Solutions, brings 35 years of technical expertise and personal experience living through the LA firestorms in 2025. Backups, Archives, Curation & Legacy Peter’s crisp presentation steps through the technical aspects of preserving, protecting, and conveying the legacy of our digital collections. He covers both the very basic topics of backups vs. archives, cloud vs. local storage, sync platforms, and the Photo Managers’ classic 3-2-1 backup strategy. To family historians and genealogists for whom legacy and archiving are everyday topics, the notion of preservation is not new. Simple details, though, might make all the difference. A couple of examples from Peter’s suggestions: * Create a “finding aid” that you can use to tell your descendants where they might find passwords, the location and sort order of archived materials, and such. Place that document in an important place, such as with wills, passports, and other important documents. * When you store external hardware copies of your archives, include all the cables you can think of to connect it to other devices. This may be important in the future. Peter’s perspective as a photographer and storyteller introduces special insight, however. We got into a discussion about “curation” of photos as a way to tell a story. That curation can’t be everything; it’s the best photos in a sequence or visual arrangement that tell your particular story. It’s also not the only story that will be told from your collection of photos. Peter quotes a phrase he uses with his photography students: Take (or select) photos as if you’re a character in that story and let others see through your eyes. It’s a simple idea, but powerful. What were the discoveries for you? Let us know in the comments. Resources Kathy collected a number of resources she thought you might find useful in your work. Let’s start with reaching out to our speaker, Peter Bennett: * FotoFlow Solutions: FotoFlowsolutions.com * Citizen of the Planet (photography site): CitizenofthePlanet.com * The NYC East Village book, Vibrant Chaos * The LA River Book, The Los Angeles River In addition, Peter was kind enough to share his slides from today’s presentation: Learn more about cloud storage and sync: * iCloud Drive icloud.com/en-ca or icloud.com in the US. * Google Drive workspace.google.com/intl/en_ca/products/drive or Workspace.google.com * OneDrive Microsoft.com/en-ca/microsoft-365/onedrive/online-cloud-storage (or just replace the location with /en-us/ * Dropbox Dropbox.com * BackBlaze Backblaze.com * Carbonite Carbonite.com * Pcloud Pcloud.com * Permanent.org Permanent.org * Forever.com Forever.com Is this the kind of post you think your friends and followers might appreciate as well? Kindly add a recommendation so they know how you feel. You’ll be doing us the favor of spreading our work. Thank you. Hang on, YOU have homework for October! Next month on Kathy’s Corner, we will focus on the software you use (or can use) for organizing your collection. Remember Projectkin is completely platform-independent, so none of the advice you hear will be motivated by affiliate codes or sponsorships. In fact, Kathy suggested discussing the exact software you use or are interested in. Message or email Kathy from the contact info on her profile with what you use. Check the event page for your local time and to register for your personal Zoom link. Don’t forget to add it to your calendar. About Kathy Stone Kathy has been the “cornerstone” of Projectkin since we were a “Rōnin” gang called “PostPonga.” That was just over three years ago, just after RootsTech 2023. Her commitment to the physical artifacts of family history now inspires our whole community. Learn more about what Kathy is doing today at her own publication: As Projectkin, we’re here to help families tell their stories in any form. I feel strongly that our collections of photos and other artifacts are key to our memories and, in turn, our stories. Do you have friends or family members who may benefit from this? Please share our work and invite friends and family to join us: Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe
