TBF…or not to TBF,WTF!

Back-up twice and store them separately.

Never run the Lacie Set-up Assistant, format a new hard

drive through the Disc Utillity.

This happened to me a few months ago & I wanted to put it out so others can avoid it at all costs.

We had returned from a 10-day shoot in Charleston. With this particular client we always back-up our shoot and give them a full back up too.

While editing, the client experienced a power surge

in their building and fried the hard drive, thus requested that we send them another back up of the shoot. No problem.

Not wanting to release the original back up I attempted to make an additional copy for the client, here’s what happened:

The 10-day shoot was on our original back up a Lacie 1TB hard drive all 750 gigs. I took a brand new Lacie d2 Quadra 1TB and as prompted, ran the Lacie Set-Up Assistant to prepare and format the new drive. I have done this numerous times and never had a problem.

Upon running the Lacie Set-up Assistant I noticed that the original HD with the clients shoot was no longer on the desktop and I now only had an icon called ‘Lacie’.

This was a moment when I literally lost my breath. I double-checked and remounted the clients HD; she came up as ‘Lacie’ with 950gigs available….not good!

It’s not what happens in life that’s important, it’s how you deal with what happens that counts.

Plan A:

Upon realizing that I had just erased a full 10 day shoot, my 1^st question of how the hell did that happen, was quickly replaced with lets fix and find a solution to this major problem.

We set-up a San Disc Rescue Pro scan and were very relieved to see the files come in. The file numbers did not correspond but we were getting the files nonetheless.

The mountain of data to scan, all 750gigs soon became our next concern. The client was waiting for the HD, they had a deadline to meet and we were getting 100 files a day, which dwindled to 30 files / day as the computer began to loose RAM.

Plan B:

A quick search online and I found DTI Data who were quoting reasonable prices and no payment if data was not recoverable.

These guys, with their expedited service were able to recover and ship the HD, with original file names in tact to our client within 5 business days.

I definitely recommend their services. When you’re in a pinch like this you want to be dealing with a Pro Team!

DTI Data

Phone: 866-438-6932

I contacted Lacie regarding this matter see their response below.

Posted: May 6, 2010 @ 1:33 PM

Good afternoon Drew,

I attempted to call you today, but unfortunately I was not able to reach you. The bug in the Setup Assistant that you described has been addressed, but a few drives did get shipped out without the patch that fixed the issue.

There are a few options open to you. The quickest would be to run a software utility called Data Rescue that we recommend to recover lost files. It is a third-party application that may be purchased here: http://www.prosofteng.com/lacie/. There is a free demo of Data Rescue, available here, that you may try before you decide to purchase the full version. This demo will allow you to scan the disk and assess the likelihood of being able to recover your data with this program.

Another option is to send the drive to us so that we may attempt to recover your data ourselves. I would like to point out that we would be using the exact same software, Data Rescue, that I recommended previously. The downside to this option is that we are located in the United States, so shipping could be expensive.

The third option is to send the drive to a professional data recovery company. We recommend DriveSavers. This is going to be the most expensive option open to you, but also the safest. If your data is critical to you, I highly recommend contacting DriveSavers for advice or an assessment of your situation.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed with us. Although I am happy to assist, you may also try to resolve this matter with LaCie Canada if you wish: http://www.lacie.com/ca/contact/.

Best regards, Alex

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Roll with the Punches

I recently read a blog post titled ‘Why I respect professional photographers’ and it pushed me to put this out there.

As a photographer one is always shooting and improving ones portfolio. This is a very good practice to exercise. Being creative and having lots of ideas is great but little will come from it if you don’t put those ideas and creative concepts into action.

Being spring here Montreal, I have been planning a few creative shoots to exercise those creative muscles. When it comes to fashion creative’s it’s not a question of: ‘ I’ve got a great idea, lets shoot it’

With fashion there is a whole team of people to coordinate with and accommodate. Finding a good stylist is often one of the biggest challenge, due to the heavy workload that goes into a successful fashion shoot. Made all the more elusive when there is no budget or big client paying the bill. Creative’s are collaborating with like-minded people to achieve a common goal. I.e.: strong fresh images for your book.

I am currently working on a very cool concept; I had the production almost all set. A lot of planning goes into a successful shoot. I started scouting locations about 2 months ago. Found an amazing location. We have a great team, set-up creative meeting to let everyone involved discuss the direction and focus of the shoot. Cast models, models are available, hair & make-up is set. Hair and make-up got booked for a half-day paid gig on the date of our shoot, it’s a hic-up, let shuffle the shoot so we use more the afternoon light, that way hair & make-up will be able to work with us, because she’s good! Almost there.

48 hours before the shoot, the location, which is very unique and a very intricate part of the shoot, calls and informs me that we can’t shoot on the scheduled day, as something has come-up. I’m pretty sure the long weekend had something to do with it.

Unfortunately we can’t control what happens to us, however we can control how we deal with what happens to us.

Needless to say after some frantic phone calls and reorganization we have bumped our creative shoot to a new date. Here’s hoping that soon I’ll be able to post the fruits of our labor.

Charleston SC

I've been working in Charleston for the past 7 days on a fashion catalogue. It's my first visit here and I must say that the city is growing on me. It's a wonderful city with historic charm.

The area has grown through some turbulent days, some inflicted by mother nature and some by man himself. There is a dark past here; however we can learn from history if we know our history.

All image shot on my iPhone.

all images ©drewhadley.com

Spin that record

Last week I shot these two great musical talents from Montreal.

The brief was to get some fresh promotional images for their up coming tour dates.

I have shot them many times before and the greatest challenge was trying to find a fresh angle.

I kept it simple as I am a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright's "less is more"

Dj Sultan and Ned Shepard are currently touring with dates in Brazil, NYC and then on to Miami for the Winter Music Conference in March.

You can check them out at:

http://www.myspace.com/nedshepard

http://www.myspace.com/djsultan

Fitness

Here is a quick spread from a fitness shoot I did recently.

Model: Carmen Klein

Hair & Make-up: Leanne Smith

Photographer: Drew Hadley

Photo Assistant: Amelie Chiasson

Portable Energy

About a month ago we were shooting on location in Santa Barbara, unfortunately there had been no swell at all. After a shoot day we rolled down to Rincon Point in hopes of seeing more than ripples. Alas the ocean was a dead calm. With no waves to surf we decided to explore and drove up into the hills and found the busiest Mexican restaurant in Ojai. Being Taco Tuesday and 2 4 1 cocktails we where really starting to like this little town. There is a definite sublime energy in Ojai, which brings me to my point. We met some very cool & interesting peeps it turns out that one of the guys with whom we shared our table is the VP of LibertyPak, the 'portable electric power' guys. DC sent me a link today which I wanted to share. Anyone who shoots on location a lot will find this company pretty interesting. Whether you're running studio flash or HMI's this is a very useful tool.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-10043-10273

LibertyPak website : www.libertypak.com

Daybreak

Magic light early this morning over Montreal, for those of us up early to see it....

View from the studio
all images ©drewhadley.com

Sneak peek of Oxygen Spring 2010...

Photographer Business tips 101

As photographers and artists we tend to be slightly more creatively minded than business minded.
If you can get both these attributes down, your gonna go far!
I just wanted to share an obvious, or maybe not so obvious business practice tip.
The 30% rule.
When initiating an estimate for a job state in the estimate that you need 30% down payment at time of booking. (This covers pre-production fees) 30% on the day of the shoot and the remainder due upon delivery of the media. It’s up to you to decide if your terms are Net 30 or 60 days.

Once the estimate is approved stick to the 30% rule.
If the client is hesitant and will only pay the total 30-60 days after the shoot, you probably don’t want to be doing business with them. Once you hand over the film/media you have no leverage.
As photographers we are generally small studios dealing with mega corp Inc companies. However our expenses are just as important. Why should we pay interest on expenses for a shoot , waiting for the Big client to pay us. If you use the 30% rule you keep your cash flow in check, and keep your assistants happy.
On a side note, don’t be shy about late payment fees. If you pay your Visa bill late do they waiver the late fees?