In 2008, I lost an entire wedding’s worth of photos to a corrupted memory card.

That moment made me paranoid about backups. I’ve stayed paranoid ever since — on purpose. Every system I use, every workflow I teach, every piece of advice I give photographers starts from one assumption: something will go wrong, and you need to be ready for it.

I’m Chris, 44, based in San Francisco. I grew up in Portland, Maine — my father was a commercial fisherman, my mother was a teacher, and between them I got a solid dose of both work ethic and patience. I studied journalism in college with a focus on photojournalism, and my first real job was at a newspaper where deadlines meant you delivered or you got replaced. That pressure shaped my entire approach to professional photography.

I went from newspapers to commercial photography, and along the way I learned that talent means nothing without systems. I have three backup drives and test them monthly. I keep a “lessons learned” journal from every shoot. I iron my shirt before client meetings even when they’re on Zoom. My twin daughters, age 11, once accidentally deleted a folder of client proofs. I had everything restored from backup in 90 seconds. They were impressed. I was relieved.

I once turned a near-disaster shoot — wrong lens, wrong time, wrong location — into a portfolio piece through sheer preparation and having a backup plan for my backup plan. My wife is an architect, and we both share the belief that good design is really about good planning. I write here because the unsexy stuff — backups, contracts, file management, client communication — is what separates working photographers from struggling ones.

If you want to run your photography business like a professional — not just shoot like one — you’re in the right place.

Want to get in touch? Drop me a line at [email protected].