Personal experience is a great teacher even though the lessons we learn can be painful. The good news is that the pain can lead us to solutions.
Meet Michelle Collinge, a photo coach who’s one of my colleagues from around the country and she’s passionate about preserving family photos like the collage above that has photos of her husband Kevin’s grandmother, Maude, center, along with her husband Percy who served in World War One. Maude’s mother and siblings are in the left, and on the right is Kevin’s father as a child.
Michelle now prints her photo books from her permanently stored photos
When Tragedy Strikes
As a young wife and mother, Michelle enjoyed arranging printed photos in traditional scrapbook albums and, as she later entered the digital age, she uploaded her photos to her computer. You can probably relate. A collection of 25,000 photos that included her most meaningful memories were in print and on her system’s hard drive.
Until her computer crashed.
She lost about one-third of the photos because she hadn’t backed them up on an external hard drive.
“I had backed some of them up using Google Photos so I recovered those. I also thought I was backing up through another company, but for some reason it never happened.”
She doesn’t want other friends and families to experience the same type of heartbreaking loss and she’s passionate about using a permanent storage solution with FOREVER®, a company that guarantees preserving photos for a lifetime, plus 100 years and beyond.
“It’s also nice that I can upload pictures from my phone. FOREVER® makes it easy. I love that and the digitization of old files.”
Digitizing for Permanent Storage
FOREVER®’s digitization services make it easy to upload printed photos and older media files. Michelle’s father was “an avid photographer” and shot 8mm film and videos. They’re now uploaded to her digital albums where she can choose who she shares with and who’s able to see the content.
Videos and film can be streamed from the site.
Michelle and her father have worry-free access to the 8mm film reels and videos uploaded
Knowing that her memories are stored safely for generations to come gives her peace of mind because it’s not just technology breakdowns that concern her. She’s made 50 complete traditional albums with another 25 still in process and those photos are vulnerable to many types of disasters.
“We live in a fire-prone area [of Los Angeles County] with a ravine below our house leading up the hillside. I had boxes of printed photos and negatives that took up lots of space. My husband’s a retired firefighter and knows what to grab if we need to evacuate. At the top of the list are the photos and the pets.”
Before FOREVER®, if the physical were damaged then the pictures were gone and couldn’t be recovered. Michelle isn’t worried about those possible losses any longer since she owns her storage space.
Safe Digital Storage Guaranteed
FOREVER® guarantees that future media files will be able to be uploaded since the company is committed to on-going research and development. The investments by owners like Michelle supports the technological updates.
“A feature I use is Forever Club that lets me save up for more storage or lets me accrue savings toward digitizing older media.”
Michelle also uses the FOREVER Club to save for turning her safely stored photos into gifts. Wall décor is one idea.
Michelle finds creative ways to use photos in decorating and as gifts
Club savings can also be used for the ever-popular photo books and turning photos into household items like cards and coasters.
“I encourage people to use the Club, just like I have,” says Michelle. “I’ve digitized 90 files of 8mm film and VHS tapes so The Club was a nice savings help.”.
The Club comes in tiers of $25, $50 and $100 and after three months users are awarded with additional gigabytes of storage. Another advantage with Forever Club is participants will receive 5% savings off all purchases in addition to free GB storage.
Michelle’s grateful for finding the solution after experiencing disappointment. But she’s not the one in her family. Her daughters also have accounts after learning a tough lesson.
“One went to Mexico and lost her phone. Her photos weren’t backed up to iCloud like she thought they were.”
She refers to FOREVER® as great insurance against lost photos.
Ask Michelle
Michelle Collinge, Photo Coach
If you’re concerned that your photos, video tapes, slide shows and more are vulnerable then ask Michelle about her use of FOREVER® and getting 2 GB of free storage to try it out.
Michelle runs her photo business from her home and if you enjoy helping others, she can show you how to do the same with this in-demand business opportunity.
To chat with her, contact her:
Ph: 909-519-9235
Email: photocoachmichelle@gmail.com
