inFOCUS by APPO

FALL 2015

inFOCUSAPPO’S MAGAZINE FOR PHOTO ORGANIZERS

inFOCUS Lisa Kurtz PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Janet Blunt CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CONTRIBUTORSMolly Bullard, Kathy Craig, Sheryl Hullings, Nick Kelsh, Jenny Larson, Mary Moseley, Cathi Nelson, Signe Pagel, Rhonda Vigeant

FOR INQUIRIES, please visit www.appo.org or call (860) 904-5365 ext. 101

APPO’S MAGAZINE FOR PHOTO ORGANIZERS

Cathi NelsonFOUNDER

Lisa KurtzDIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

2 inFOCUS FALL 2015

Welcome to our fall edition of InFocus! If you’re anywhere in the northern hemisphere, then you’ve probably noticed the slight chill that’s creeping in the air…the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler, the leaves are changing, it’s unmistakable, the seasons are shifting and winter is coming.

For many of us changing seasons are opportunities to refocus our attention. Are

you starting to think about holiday gifts that you need or your clients? Have you been impacted by the floods in the Southeast, the fires in the West or a computer virus that has

wiped out all your photo memories? Do you struggle with time management issues? Have you been frustrated by the transition from iPhoto to Photos? If you answered yes to any of those

questions you will find help in this issue. Kathy Craig shares her experiences in South Carolina where she spent countless hours working with volunteers rescuing residents’ treasured photos from record-setting floods. We are seeing more of this as weather extremes become the new normal. Sheryl Hullings shares how she helped a client deal with a Cryptovirus and Rhonda Vigeant gives you some great reasons to convert your home movies now before any more time passes. But it isn’t all doom and gloom, we are bringing you excellent articles including training on transitioning your client from iPhoto to Photos, and how to have a success vendor fair in time for the Holiday Season. Make yourself a cup of tea, put on some great music and enjoy this edition of InFocus

Welcome!

Hello | FALL 2015

Cover photograph by Nick Kelsh

Cathi NelsonFOUNDER

Lisa KurtzDIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

3inFOCUS FALL 2015photograph by Nick Kelsh

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Contents

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34

FEATURES06_Photo Rescue 911 Sounding the call to save a town’s flood-ravaged photos By Kathy Craig

15_ A Sound Investment Five good reasons to attend APPO’s 4th annual conference. By Cathi Nelson

TIPS & TECHNIQUES18_ App-bracadabra Demystifying the magic behind Apple’s new Photos App By Molly Bullard

24 _The Value of Metadata By Mary Moseley

26_How to Put Together a Successful Holiday Vendor FairBy Jenny Larson

32_ Un-Hurried Holidays Time Management Tips for Busy Entrepreneurs By Signe Pagel

34_Home (Movies) for the Holidays By Rhonda Vigeant

38_ Dealing with a CryptoWall Virus Ransom By Sheryl Hullings

IN EVERY ISSUE42_Seasoned Advice For Capturing Your Best Holiday Images By Photographer Nick Kelsh.

Issue 05 Fall 2015

42

Features | FROM THE FIELD

Sounding the call to save a town’s flood-ravaged photos BY KATHY CRAIG

PHOTO RESCUE

911Sounding the call to save a town’s flood-ravaged photos BY KATHY CRAIG

PHOTO RESCUE


I didn’t know the weekend of October 3rd would change my city forever. It started out with warnings from the weatherman that South Carolina was going to get some rain - a lot of it. I don’t usually pay much atten-tion to weather reports, but this time was different. The storm clouds on the weather map were acting like they never had before. Thursday night we bought the last five cases of bottled water at the store. I wasn’t the only one who knew what would happen if the predictions were right.

The news reports Sunday morning were terrifying. One man was stuck in his truck and rescuers couldn’t get to him. The news anchors kept announcing where he was, could anybody help him? That’s when I turned the TV off.

Facebook was easier to take until I read that my friend Bea had to be rescued that morning from her house. She had awoken to find herself on a floating bed. She was 38 weeks pregnant and having contractions. Rescuers had to break out her bedroom window to help her. She went straight to the hospital and had the baby the next morning.

Monday we learned that Monica’s house had been flood-ed. We couldn’t get to her, though. So many roads had been washed out that volunteers from church couldn’t reach her until the next day. The floodwaters had come in about three feet high, meaning that almost everything was contaminated. I told the clean up crew to save the pictures for me. They gave me a big plastic box filled with stinky muddy pictures. On top was a circa 1940 smiling lady’s face. I knew I had to save these pictures.

I started with asking APPO Facebook members what to do. They referred me to Operation Photo Rescue. I down-loaded their Salvage Flooded Photos information page and started on Monica’s pictures. My husband, daughter and I were up until 1 am washing and drying them. I can now pick Monica’s family out in a crowd of people and ask them about events in their lives. That’s what those pictures were - a record of their lives.

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Sorting through the pictures of another person is interesting. You move from 1920’s Dapper Dan in one picture to 1980’s sky high bangs in the next. You don’t know the names, but you can see love in grandma’s eyes looking at the newborn grandchild. You can see the pride on parents’ faces in graduation snapshots.

11inFOCUS FALL 2015

I began thinking about how many other pictures were out there, how many other people had piles of belongings in front of their houses. I knew I had to act fast. I began by posting the OPR info sheet on my Facebook page and then posting it to every local news outlet. From there I found the Facebook pages for the volunteer clean up crews out there in the affected neighborhoods. I emailed local news anchors and begged them to share the information with their audience. Surprisingly, they put me on the television news that night to demonstrate how to wash and save flooded photos.

The next day we went to Bea’s house which is beside Gill’s Creek. The waters had come up fast and high. I spoke with her neighbors. They had heard the sirens that Sunday morning and come outside to see what was going on. They were standing in their yard when the dam broke and the creek rose and swept the man and his wife away. The couple grabbed onto a telephone pole, which they clung to for four hours un-til they could get to higher ground. Another man with them had been washed into a tree where he sat for the same four hours. They had had no notice and hadn’t been able to grab anything of value. Their front yard was now full of their belongings, just like the others on their street.

The clean up crew told me Bea’s pictures had survived on a high shelf, but I found some more in the pile. They were obviously from her youth in her native Tanzania and from her husband’s two-year mission in the Philippines - irreplaceable. We were up late again that night washing and drying this set.

I’m scanning Bea and Monica’s pictures now. I’ll give them back the clean pictures and digitized copies via flash drive or CD and encourage them to use cloud storage for more security. Several people saw me on TV and told me they had done what I demonstrated and had saved their pictures. I also got to help with a group that had gathered, washed, and dried pictures from other flood victims. I washed and separated pictures from a beautiful scrapbook someone had made. Some pages were full of journal-like entries to go along with newborn daughter pictures. I could only hope that the author had used copies of the images and that the ultrasound picture used wasn’t the only one.

If these people had been warned, they would have been able to pack up their treasures, save all of their photo memories. But there was no warning. There was nothing to tell them that everything in the world they owned was about to be washed in a muddy sewage filled bath. I’m so grateful I had the privilege of helping them save some of the irreplaceable items in their lives. One lady I spoke with said as the waters filled her house all she wanted were her pictures, she told the family to save the pictures. She knew what I learned thanks to this flood. You can buy a new house, fill it full from any store, but you can’t replace the only picture of your mother, or the video of your child’s first step, or the fourth generation snapshot taken just before you lost your grandfather. Some things money just can’t buy.

Thanks to a tragedy, I’m determined to work even harder as a photo organizer to save photos and the stories and memories that go with them. At the end of our lives all we have is family and friends and the times we’ve shared together. I’m happy to help keep those memories alive for the next generation and generations to come.

KATHY CLARK CRAIG is the owner of Memories Managed in Columbia, South Carolina. New to the photo organizing business, Kathy’s first interest is genealogy. Working in family history has brought her a deep appreciation for preserving the rich heritage of a family, including pictures and memorabilia. Married for 25 years and mother of 6 children, she works hard to keep her maturing family close while being spread apart geographically. Her background in digital design helps her see the beauty of enhancing photographs and sharing them in alternate ways of viewing. Her goal is to preserve the stories that go with every family picture.

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One of the most costly mistakes we risk making as entrepreneurs is not to invest in ourselves. For some, this includes deciding to forgo professional learning opportunities, such as the annual APPO conference. Perhaps you recognize this voice in your head: “I can’t afford it”; “I don’t have the time”; “I don’t have enough experience”; “Is it really worth it”; “I’ll wait till next year when my business is more successful”? While questions like these are valid ones, we owe it to ouselves not to allow them to override our decision-making process. Statistics prove that the most successful business owners take time to learn new skills, network with their peers, and step away to evaluate where they are going so they can plan for the future.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT | Features

A SOUND INVESTMENT Five good reasons to attend APPO’s 4th annual conference BY CATHI NELSON

15inFOCUS FALL 2015

Conference attendees discuss solutions to their business challenges during their morning intensive session lead by author and professional organizer, Julie Morgenstern.

Every day you work hard to grow your business and we understand your challenges! Throughout the year we listen carefully and plan our conference to address your concerns. We pinpoint the areas that are causing you anxiety and hire experts to offer training. We identify your peers who are experiencing success and invite them to speak. We seek out new and innovative trainers to bring you new ideas that are working. We challenge ourselves to shatter conventional thinking so we don’t grow complacent. We search for companies that will help your bottom line and we ensure that we keep an eye on costs, so you will get the best return on your investment. Here are my top five reasons why I feel confident promising that you won’t regret attending our 4th annual conference:

1. We have added six short courses that offer in-depth teaching on one subject. This option is perfect for anyone wishing to dig a little deeper into a specific area of interest in a small group environment. Topics include: Online Marketing, Writing a Business Plan, Using Lightroom to Organize Photos, Taking Better Photos, Increasing Profits and Home Movie Essentials. You can register for any of the courses as a standalone class or as part of your overall conference experience. They will run on Thursday afternoon, from 1:30 – 4:30 pm and the cost is only $149 per course. 2. This year half of our 90-minute breakout sessions focus on the technology of photo organizing. We reached out to our most successful and technology-proficient APPO members to share the information you have been seeking!

You can take a class on how to:

• Organize a client’s photos with Photos (Mac) and Windows Photo Gallery (PC);

• Maximize your income by offering scanning services;

• Create video montages for profit;• Choose photo editing software;• Understand elements of design.

3. Based on your feedback from Or-lando 2015 we have added more time with our exhibitors. We know that you enjoy networking with companies that can affect your bottom line and support the needs of your customers. This year we have extended our expo hours through lunch on Friday. You will have over 10 hours of time dedicated to meeting with our exhibitors and our pre-conference intensive attendees will have a private, two-hour VIP event.

4. We understand that conference is a commitment of your resourc-es. We have worked hard to keep the costs down. We’ve added a continen-tal breakfast, negotiated competitive guest room rates, planned an exclusive launch party with heavy appetizers on Thursday evening, as well as lunches and snacks during our conference. Our goal is for you to walk away confident that you will earn a profitable return on your investment.

5. Our industry is growing and the demand for photo organizing ser-vices is exploding. Your expertise is in demand. The income potential is growing. Many APPO members are adding staff to their businesses; they are increasing their fees and earning a sustainable income. This is the only conference in the world focused spe-cifically on photo organizing. We have not overlooked the needs you have to run a successful business. That is why we have breakouts and main stage speakers that will help you focus on cutting edge, affordable marketing, time management skills, profitable pricing, networking and getting clients to say YES.

But wait, there is more! Our pre-con-ference intensives are already 75% full because our members know that it is an invaluable experience. It will be hard to choose just three from this amazing lineup of options.

Lisa Montanaro is returning to offer two 4-hour sessions focused on her Six Pillars of Success program.

Highly successful and sought after APPO members Jenny Larson and Darla DeMorrow have a combined total of 25 years of experience in the photo and professional organizing pro-fessions. They will share how you can build your businesses from referrals without relying on advertising or mar-keting.

APPO-recognized trainers Sherra and Rita are returning to teach pricing and profitability.

Jane Pollack, a nationally recognized speaker, certified coach, author, blog-ger and lifestyle entrepreneur with over 30 years of business experience, will share high touch practices in a high tech world.

Protecting your client’s photo assets and your business assets is growing in importance and Mary Moseley and Jackie Lyals with the assistance of an attorney will ensure you understand all the risks and ways to protect yourself.

So there you have it! I hope that you will consider joining us in Anaheim this March. Everyone is invited, including current APPO members, those consid-ering joining APPO, as well as profes-sionals from other organizations in-cluding: professional organizers, direct sellers, senior move managers, profes-sional photographers, retail store own-ers and more. I’ll see you there!

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT | Features

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Pioneer of the Photo-Life Management Industry, CATHI NELSON is the founder of the Association of Personal Photo

Organizers, an association that trains individuals who specialize in helping consumers and businesses rescue their

irreplaceable film and digital photos, organizing them in a way that makes it simple to share their memories, lives and

traditions. Since its inception, APPO has grown to include hundreds of members throughout the United States, Canada,

Australia and United Kingdom.


Demystifying the magic behind Apple’s new Photos app BY MOLLY BULLARD

App-bracadabra

19inFOCUS FALL 2015

Demystifying the magic behind Apple’s new Photos app BY MOLLY BULLARD

Since 2009, Apple has introduced an improved, more robust version of the iPhone, iPad, and computer operating system each year. The buzz about the upgrade and/or upcoming release begins in the spring, preceding the product’s fall release. By the holidays, there is fervor from Apple’s very loyal community encouraging all of us to buy. The exception to this spring release cycle has been Apple’s photo organizing program, iPhoto. This photo management software has had regular updates since its release in 2002, but no major interface change until Apple’s most recent Spring 2015 release of Photos.

For photo organizing clients with novice technical skills, this push from Apple to upgrade our devices every year, perhaps before they’ve mastered the functionality, and the drastic changes to the new photo organizing program, have created a great opportunity for us photo organizers to provide first line of support.

App-bracadabra DIGITAL PHOTO ORGANIZING | Tips & Techniques


The Look and Organization of Photos

Images are no longer organized by date taken into an Event with user-defined descriptive text, but into a top-level Year view, followed by a Collection view and, finally, a Moments view. If there is a geotag location embedded in the original photo file, it will also be displayed when in the Collection view. These views are exactly the same as the iPhone Photos application. Apple defines each of these views as: Year, Collection, Moments.

“Events” are now called “Albums”

In the Events view of iPhoto, all photos were grouped by the date taken and the user-added descriptive text to the Event title. Individual day Events could be merged into a single Event if, for example, you went to Italy for seven days. If the user wanted to share a sub-set of those Italy pictures with friends, they would create an Album with the best-of selection.

Still true in Photos, Albums are a link to the original photo set, so can be deleted or fine-tuned by user preference, and the original photo set remains intact. The descriptive title of the Event and Album was (and is) very effective in allowing the user to search their collection for a specific photo set such as Italy, Thanksgiving, 1st day of School or Allison’s Graduation.

In the transition between iPhoto and Photos, all the previously created iPhoto Albums are still visible in the Photos SideBar. And all the old iPhoto Events with descriptive titles are also visible, but embedded in an Album called iPhoto Events. Users can opt to keep their pre-existing Albums, delete, and/or add their Events (now Albums) to their new organizational structure.

Helping our clients find a photo or photo set they are looking for is one of our most important tasks as photo organizers.

I would suggest you help your client create a Folder, Sub-Folder, Album organization within Photos. They can always scroll through their photo library using the Year, Collection, Moments view, but a faster method is to use the Search field with text or a keyword.

Example photo organization ideas from the full catalog:

Folder = 2015 Sub-folder = Family Album = 4th of July Parade Album = Hiking at Baker’s Pass Album = Dinner at the Brown’s Sub-Folder = Child #1 Album = 1st Grade VIP Album = T-ball Season Favorites Album = Vikings Basketball Sub-Folder = Child #2 Album = Spring Piano Recital Album = Girl Scout Camping

Folder = Travel Album = 2015 Italy Album = 2012 NYC Album = 2012 Nepal

Folder = House and Garden Sub-Folder = 2014 Kitchen Reno Album = Design Ideas Album = Demolition Album = Reno as of April Album = Reno as of May Album = Reno Complete! Sub-Folder =Basement flood Album = Images for Insurance Album = Flood Repair Sub-Folder = Garden Album = Front Porch Pots Album = Garden Blooms

Note: Be sure to backup the Photos library before you start any organization effort.

Q: “How can I help my Apple clients understand the new app?”

1. Explain the difference between iPhoto and Photos

DIGITAL PHOTO ORGANIZING | Tips & Techniques

21inFOCUS FALL 2015

Photos are organized by the embedded Year/Date, so what about scanned images?

Since Photos organizes by the embedded Year/Date, most of your scanned images from 2015, 2014, and so on may cause confusion for your user.

Within the program, you can select the images from the Moments view, go to the Window tab at the top of the program and choose Info. This panel will allow you to change the date and add keywords. I have heard that eventually you will be able to add a geotag location from this panel, as well.

Photos can be upgraded to sync between all your devices

I always recommend that a client have one master photo library. This has been very difficult up until recently because of storage issues, computer software limitations, or user confusion.

Like many other companies, Apple introduced their iCloud Photo Library upgrade that stores your library on their cloud server. If you delete a picture from your iPhone, it will be sync’d to your library on your phone and computer(s). I have enjoyed this functionality, but feel strongly that users should add descriptive text and keywords to make finding a picture less of an effort.

The cost of this upgrade is comparable to other cloud service vendors.

2. Learn and translate the behind-the-scenes “magic” between an iPhone and Photos to your clients.

Millions and millions of us now take most of our pictures with our cell phone. As we become more dependent on this device, I think it is imperative that we understand the technology behind how it communicates with our computer. Many of my clients with an Apple iPhone and a Mac computer, think it is “magic” that their photos often appear on their computer.

Q: “How can I help my Apple clients understand the new app?”


The magic explained, so you can educate your clients:

Apple introduced iCloud and Photo Stream in 2013. If the iCloud functionality is turned on from the device and computer, Apple will wirelessly push your pictures from the phone to a destination spot on your computer. If they are using iPhoto, they appear in an “Event” called PhotoStream. If an iPhone client uses a PC, the same wireless push is possible if they download the software, iCloud for PC.

The same iCloud wireless push from your iPhone to Photos still exists. If this functionality is turned on, all the pictures from your phone will appear in the Year, Collection, Moments view by date, and show the geotag location. (An upgrade with Photos is the syncing of videos which was not possible with iPhoto.)

Note: A software update on the iPhone and/or computer may be required. Users can always choose not to use this functionality and plug their phone directly into their computer.

3. Answer their call for help: “I have no more storage space on my phone to take pictures!”

In the last few months I have had multiple clients tell me their phone storage is full. These clients range in age and feel exasperated because they are no longer able to take new pictures or videos, further enhancing their feeling of desperation with the situation.

Most iPhones come with 5GB of iCloud storage space. The storage was initially used to backup a user’s phone numbers, contacts, applications, messages, and house their most recent 1000 cell phone pictures in between backups to their computer. However, fewer and fewer users are consistently plugging their phone into their computer, as they have taken advantage of the iCloud PhotoStream sync and/or, they have another problem - their computer is full and won’t accept the new files.

DIGITAL PHOTO ORGANIZING | Tips & Techniques

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Steps to help them resolve the problem:

1. Review their photo library to see if their iPhone pictures and videos are on their computer. If so, make sure they have a backup plan in place. If not, import using iTunes, iPhoto, Photos, or Image Capture.

2. Take the phone into the Apple store, or call support, and ask them to check to see if there are any old backups using that storage space. With a new phone being released each year, it is common to have the old backup AND the new backup both saved, which is not necessary.

3. Review Manage Storage from your phone and delete applications that are taking up a lot of space or not being used.

4. Start deleting photos and videos. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a method to Select All, so they must delete individually and then Clear Deleted Messages, Clear Deleted Photos, and Clear Deleted Videos.

5. Turn off the phone, turn back on.

6. Make sure the phone has been updated with the latest software update. Often times there are bugs that are fixed which might help the problem.

7. Lastly, if still struggling, buy more space.

4. Be compassionate

For our clients, their pictures are their most important possession. But with the technical skills required to work with digital pictures and new devices being launched by Apple (and other vendors) every year, they often feel like they are unable to access their pictures which is very unsettling. Take time to empathize with their challenges, do your homework to find solutions in advance, and train them slowly so they understand and gain confidence to manage on their own.

For over nine years, MOLLY BULLARD, Founder of Seattle Photo Organizing, has been transforming diverse collections of archives into accessible memories. Guiding clients through their photos, slides, film/video, and digital images she finds the set that best tells their story. With deep technical know-how as a data analyst through college and a sales and marketing manager at Oracle Corporation, no computer environment is too complex. She helps bridge the divide between old technology and new to create elegant photo books, captivating photo walls, custom videos, online digital family archives, and personalized digital photo training for her clients. .

Tips & Techniques | DIGITAL PHOTO ORGANIZING

the value of metadata

BY MARY MOSELEY


Taking and sharing digital images has exploded with the maturing of digital technology. Today, more pictures are taken than at any other time in history. This is translating into photo collections that keep growing by the 1000’s. As your photo collections grow, finding specific photos has be-come an overwhelming challenge. Have you ever spent hours looking for one specific image? You remember saving it in a specific folder, but now you are not sure what folder that was or where it is. And what about information that will help you to remember details about your digital photos? If your digital photo collection is difficult for you to manage now, how will your loved ones be able to make sense of it in the future?

Fortunately, there’s a powerful tool called “metadata” that you can add to your photos. Metadata is informa-tion that describes a digital image. Adding metadata to a digital image is the techie version of handwriting details onto the back of a printed photo. All of this information (metadata) makes the image searchable and records important information about the image.

As an image is made, your digital device automatically writes technical metadata that is called “EXIF” metadata directly into your image file. EXIF metadata includes time and date; camera and lens; exposure information and more depending on your camera make and model. This is called “auto tagging”.

You can also add your own metadata to your images. This is called “IPTC” metadata. IPTC metadata includes descriptive information like captions, keywords, copyright information and much more. You can even journal right into the metadata! This is called “custom tagging”.

You need to be careful with your metadata. It can sometimes get lost or separated from your photos. It’s very important to take the time to educate yourself and to be cognizant of how metadata is treated by software ap-plications, photo sharing and social media sites that you are using. This will ensure that all of your hard work of adding metadata to your photos always travels with your image file and won’t potentially get lost along the way. Some software applications don’t directly embed the metadata into your image file and some photo sharing and social media sites strip metadata from your images.

Metadata is vital to your digital photo collection. It adds intelligence and allows you to simply and quickly search thousands of photos in seconds. When you document details, it adds meaning. After all, it’s not just about the photos. It’s about the story. It’s about the memory. The photo is simply the window to the stories and the memories. Metadata allows you to weave those stories and memories together in order to preserve them as meaningful and powerful photographic records for yourself and for future generations.

When MARY MOSELEY was 10 years old, her mom was in a terrible car accident and sustained a life threatening head injury that put her in a coma and changed her life forever. Mary was not able to see her mom for weeks so she carried a photograph of her around everywhere. That one photo is what got her through a very difficult time and engrained in her the importance of photos and the need to safeguard them. Mary is a certified photo organizer and founding member of the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO). She is also currently serving as chair of the Social Media and Website Committee for the Save Your Photos Alliance. Mary specializes in teaching digital photo organization, metadata and backup.

metadata25inFOCUS FALL 2015

JENNY LARSON has over 12 years in the photo organizing industry. Her passion for preserving memories and storytelling through slide-shows compelled her to found Forever Digital Memories in 2003, a full service Photo Organ-izing business. Since then, Jenny has helped thousands of clients preserve their photos and videos. Jenny has a passion for learning cut-ting edge technologies and prides herself on offering her clients the best options. Jenny has an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in Communication Studies and a law degree from the University of Southern Califor-nia. Jenny lives in Glenview, IL and is the mom to three boys and a small zoo of animals who have taught her the value of staying organized and capturing each and every moment and preserving it carefully.

Tips & Training | MARKETING

I just wrapped up my third annual holiday vendor fair at a local church with a private school. It went ex-tremely well. It was the best yet in terms of gross sales and due to some tweaks in my offerings from years past, should continue to be profitable since I sold a lot of packages to great new clients that will be redeemed in 2016. Following are some of the things I’ve learned over the past three years. I hope you can take away a tip or two, whether you are doing a holiday show or a general event at any time of the year.

WHY DO A HOLIDAY VENDOR FAIR?

People are there in a buying mood. They want to spend money to sup-port the cause. Photo gifts and photo

How to put together a successful holiday vendor fair

organizing are unique and much need-ed offerings and stand out amongst the holiday items and ubiquitous jewelry vendors.

Recognize that a lot of what you are do is raising awareness. Not every-one walks into a fair prepared to drop $1000 on organizing photos they’ve been putting off for thirty years. You are building a foundation. That said, I was able to sell several $250 gift certif-icates to people who will undoubtedly become much larger clients simply by saying, “Why don’t you buy a small gift certificate today. That way you are committing to the project and giving a donation to the school. Then we will sit down at our first meeting and plan out the budget for the remainder of the project”.

BY JENNY LARSON


How to put together a successful holiday vendor fair

FIND AN EVENT

If you aren’t already in the know about an event, call some local private schools and women’s groups. Search for Holiday Gift Boutique or Holiday Vendor Fair. Pick the ones with the best attendance, potential client base and exposure. The fair I attended requires vendors to sign up in March. You might need to start planning now for next year.

TIP: Pick a fair where your current clients will be shopping. A lot of the reason I’ve been successful is that a high percentage of my clients shop there because they attend the church. By the way, I am not a member of this church but I’m happy to support a good cause that my clients support. My clients love to

MARKETING | Tips & Techniques

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Tips & Techniques | MARKETING

buy things, like holiday cards, at this fair because they know a percentage is a donation. Would these clients have ordered holiday cards from me without the fair? In many cases, yes. But it is still good PR to give back to a cause your clients support.

BUT MY COMMUNITY DOESN’T HAVE PEOPLE WHO WOULD WALK IN AND SPEND $1000-$2000 ON A PACKAGE

Another APPO member visited my booth a couple years ago and com-mented: “The market there was per-

fect. A lot of people in this area have disposable income. Might not work as well in all markets.”

My advice is to GO TO the areas where the disposable income is located! If you don’t live there, try to reach out to some vendor fairs in areas where there are potential clients with money to spend. Many of the vendors at this event were from downtown Chicago or the western suburbs, a good 30-45 minutes away from the suburb where I live. They heard this was a great event and wanted to join in.

WHAT ITEMS ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE ON DISPLAY?

Decide on what items and services you want to offer. Don’t do it all! Each year I have paired down my offerings to only those things that sold the year before. This year, I had far fewer items, and yet I only sold four things: holiday cards, pillowcases, notepads and, of course, packages of my time.

And yet you need “things”. For this fair, I was required to have items to offer, not just packages. I also needed to


have a few items in the $30 range. So while you might end up selling one or-nament to a person and only make $10 on the entire transaction, that’s a risk I had to take for this fair. And it paid off.

Other tips about the items you sell:

• Order samples of all items. I sold nothing that I didn’t have an actual sample of (even though I showed a few people catalogs of other items).

• To reduce the cost of ordering a lot of samples, reach out to your best clients and ask for photos. Give them the items after the event. It’s a great way to thank VIP clients, especially those who are shopping at the event.

• Pick samples that have photos that represent who will buy them. For example the pillowcases are big hits with tween/teen girls. So I had samples that had groups of girls on them.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO CHARGE?

Plan your pricing to account for any percentage the school/vendor host will take. Pick price points that suit the event. If you aren’t at an event in a market where people can spend $2000 on a package then don’t offer it! It will scare people. Make smaller packages that allow people to envision a com-pleted project for an amount they can afford.

Use the event to increase your current prices. Ever notice that food manufac-turers often shrink their packaging to increase profits, but make the package seem larger by adding a “bonus” for a short time. I took a cue from them and used this year’s event to raise my prices by $25 per hour and put packages together that “throw in” a free Legacy Box or two.

This did a few things: I was able to instantly get confidence about my new pricing by putting those new numbers out there and watching people’s reactions. Happily, no one

was surprised about my new rate and it didn’t hamper sales at all. It helped my confidence to have the pricing written down on my packages sign (Thanks Lisa Montanaro for the great tip about printing out your pricing.) When people asked what it costs to hire me, I simply showed them my packages sign. I let the numbers speak for themselves, but added “you get a free Legacy Box with this package”. So I could talk about the FREE things rather than the hourly rate.

Don’t forget: Are you registered to col-lect sales tax in your state/city/county? If not look into this ASAP. Most fairs will require you to present this license.

USE THE EVENT TO LAUNCH A NEW SERVICE

I recently bought a second PS50 to rent. I wanted to promote this. I brought my PS50 to show folks how easy it is to scan for themselves. I even put out a Facebook message telling people they could bring 100 photos to my booth to scan for free. Having the scanner on-site resulted in the sale of several rentals for folks who didn’t walk in thinking they were going to purchase such an item. It also showed a few people that they didn’t want to deal with ANY type of scanning and they were happy to pay me to do it. They bought a package for me to scan their items instead.

I also gave away a 3-day rental for the raffle portion of the event. At this event, every vendor is required to donate an item for a large raffle. I gave a certificate for a 3-day rental. Again, getting the word out there.

TEAM UP & GET HELP

Don’t do it alone. If you don’t have employees, ask a friend/relative to help you ring up sales while you talk. Better yet, ask someone to partner with you. Call another APPO member, or a local business that you work with or WANT to work with (frame shop, local scanning service, photographer).

This year I invited APPO member Julie Chenevert from Books of Life to join me. Check out her amazing books if you haven’t already! It was a great chance for my clients to see her books and she was able to meet a lot of new potential customers.

WILL I GET THE TYPE OF CLIENTS I WANT TO WORK WITH FROM AN EVENT LIKE THIS?

If you pick the right event, YES! Each and every year I have gotten a few new VIP clients that had never heard of me before. They purchased packages and turned into a large percentage of my income the following year. This year was no exception. I’m excited to meet with one of these new clients in just two days and set her up with a Mylio account and teach her how to use Proshow to make a slideshow for her son’s football team. Then we are going to tackle (pun intended) her printed photos

SELL SELL SELL! SOME LINES THAT WORKED

Unlike a jewellery vendor, people won’t see your booth and immediately understand what you are offering. You need to SELL! After two days, I can tell you my face hurt from talking so much. You need to grab people’s attention and explain the services you offer.

As people walk by the booth and stare at your products a little funny, tell them: “I’m not selling photos of my kids. I take YOUR photos and make fabulous gifts out of them.”

“If you can’t even think about making a gift because your photos are a mess, I can help with that.”

“If you’ve been meaning to organize your photos for years, buying this to-night will give help you commit to move forward with the project since you’ve paid for it. The free Legacy Boxes are only available for this event. Then, I will be in touch to remind you to start the project.”

29inFOCUS FALL 2015

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“Most of these holiday cards were taken with iPhones. You don’t need a fancy photographer photo to make a great holi-day card. I will retouch your photo to make it look great!”

“Peace of mind is a great gift to give someone.”

“Why not buy tonight so that a portion of your sales goes towards the charity?”

OTHER DETAILS - DO SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF

It takes a lot of planning to put together a successful vendor fair. You should plan and think through every little detail to make it successful.

Does the event provide tables? Tablecloths? How much space do your items take up?

This year I ordered a pop-up banner (see photos). It was a great way to showcase my offerings. I got mine from Millers Lab, but there are tons of other places.

Don’t forget:• Easels to get your items upright• Ornament holders to display ornaments• Place card holders to display holiday cards

I printed all my signs from Walgreens photo on 11x14 poster boards with paperback easels. Cost was about $10 per sign.

Bring business cards and handouts:• Creative Holiday Photo Tips handout on APPO site that is

a great giveaway for anyone walking by• Print lists of your services and pricing• Print follow up instructions so people know how to send

you photos.

DO YOU REALLY THINK PEOPLE WILL MEET YOU FOR THE FIRST TIME AND DROP THAT KIND OF MONEY?

The APPO member who visited my booth a few years ago commented, “Many of the people purchasing at the fair didn’t know you. But you got them to hand over their credit cards and sign up for product/services that they were not going to receive that day. There is a big trust there! How did you do that?”

I just talked to people about their photo needs and sug-gested packages and my services and offered my advice on the spot to specific questions (e.g. What’s your favorite online backup service?). After talking to folks, I think they sensed my passion and expertise and the care I take with each project. For a couple people signing up for packages I mentioned that I had many past clients walking around the event if they wanted references. One woman said, “I don’t need that...after talking to you, I’m convinced you will put your heart into this project”. So it’s all about being sin-cere and expressing your passion for what you are doing.

IF ALL OF THIS SEEMS OVERWHELMING - START SMALL

For a quick and low cost holiday fair turnaround: Order a couple of ornaments and a sign with organizing packages. The investment and time commitment up front will be minimal and you are increasing awareness if nothing else.

FINAL TIPS

Don’t forget to mingle and sell to the other vendors. They can help you get your foot in the door at future vendor fairs. Also, they are potential customers. Perhaps you can barter? I traded some of my products for jewellery. I also bought products from a vendor who wants me to come to her house next week to begin a 20-hour package.

THINK THROUGH THE SALES PROCESS

Learn about the sales process at the event:

1. Do customers pay you directly? Or is there a central checkout?2. If you need to process checkout, include credit card fees in your pricing structure3. Get a credit card vendor. I use Square and love them! (I already have the money from the fair in my bank account)

Square was great because it tallied up my gross sales and allowed me to download item sales spreadsheets, so that I could determine best selling items (ornaments and pillow cases).

4. Import items you are selling into your credit card app.5. Don’t forget some cash to make change (although I didn’t have anyone pay with cash - good to have on hand).6. Will you have electricity? An extension cord? 7. Don’t forget extra credit card readers8. Price stickers for items - make sure prices are visible.9. Filing box for orders and extra brochures?10. Does the event organizer provide chairs or stools? Do you need to bring your own?

MARKETING | Tips & Techniques

31inFOCUS FALL 2015

Tips & Techniques | TIME MANAGEMENT


Un-Hurried Holidays

Where does the time go? We all find ourselves asking that question at least once during the busy year-end holiday season. As business owners, one of the significant advantages we appreciate is the ability to “call the shots” on how we use our time. If we want to chaperone our child’s school field trip tomorrow afternoon, we can do that. But that advantage can also be a disadvantage, particularly at this time of year. We can easily get caught up in the busyness - or the business - of the season and then pay for it with high stress and frazzled nerves as we find ourselves in a time crunch. Here are 10 things you can do that will make a difference this season.

TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS FOR BUSY ENTREPRENEURS BY SIGNE PAGEL

photograph by Nick Kelsh

33inFOCUS FALL 2015

1. Identify your business and your personal priorities for this season.

Some of you will be highly focused on business, and some of you will prefer to spend more time with family. Once again, that’s the beauty of being in business for yourself – you get to set the priorities. The important part, though, is to identify the priorities and to plan accordingly

2. Use just one calendar system to track both your personal and your professional schedules.

If your personal appointments are on a calendar posted on the refrigerator, take it down and transfer them into your business calendar right now. Keep your calendar with you always, so you will be ready to set an appointment or check your availability. If you have to say to a client or potential customer, “I’ll get back to you when I can check my calendar,” you are wasting precious time and possibly losing out on a new client.

3. Use the calendar blocking technique to reserve time for business and personal projects.

Sit down with a full month’s calendar, write in all your specific appointments, and then block out parts of your calendar for the times you want to reserve for business projects and personal/family time. Your calendar is flexible, of course, but the exercise of scheduling project time will reinforce your planning process and will keep you on track with execution of your plans.

4. Spend 15 minutes each weekend to review and plan the week ahead.

Taking time to plan ahead will allow you to be prepared for both your personal holiday events and your business projects during the week.

5. Anticipate your clients’ new project needs.

You may be able to predict what some clients will need based on conversations you’ve had with them recently. It would also be helpful to give them a gentle nudge with an email, a phone call, your marketing newsletter, etc. to remind them that your services and products make wonderful personalized gifts.

6. Make a list of important dates.

Write down important dates such as your vendors’ last-dates for holiday shipping; and shipping times from you to your clients depending on the carrier you use. Keep this at your fingertips for quick reference.

7. Take stock of your supplies.

Check your inventory of supplies now, such as DVDs, flash drives, boxes for photo books, etc., and replenish them, so you don’t have to scramble for them later.

8. Check your equipment.

Handle any needed repair or maintenance needs now, rather than when your client brings you their project.

9. Determine your client’s needs and then prioritize projects.

When your client calls you with a project you aren’t sure will fit into your tight holiday schedule, ask if it needs to be completed by the end of the year. You might be surprised to find that the client doesn’t expect or need it by Christmas-time, for example. If you know your holiday season will be chaotic, you may want to consider offering an incentive to the clients who are willing to let you work their project into the gaps in your schedule, even if it is after the holidays.

10. Use an effective tool to create your “to-do” list.

Sticky-notes tacked all over your work area and bathroom mirror may be a tool, but they are seldom effective. Instead, implement a tool that can be updated and revised as the days go by. Check out “Insightly,” “Evernote,” or “Workflowy,” to name a few. They can be accessed from your computer or an app on your digital device, and they all provide the ability to organize and track your projects or lists of things to do.

Enjoy your holiday season and be sure to leave time to enjoy the festivities and take lots photos - even if it means scheduling it in on your calendar as an appointment with yourself!

SIGNE PAGEL has a passion for organizing -- photos, people, events, and time -- and she has used that gift and passion in her various life roles. As an APPO Certified Personal Photo Organizer, Signe and her daughter, Danielle Studer, own In-Focus Photo Solutions, based in Fort Myers, FL. They provide businesses and individuals who cherish their family photos with safe and reliable methods for organizing and archiving their photos, film, and digital images, so they can be enjoyed for generations to come. Prior to moving to Florida, Signe worked at International Dairy Queen, Inc. (IDQ) in Minneapolis, MN, for 32 years. As VP of Human Resources and Meeting/Travel Services, concurrently, her leadership responsibilities required excellent time management skills. She was a certified trainer for the Franklin Covey Time Management and Project Management courses, which she taught to officers and employees of IDQ.

http://www.infocusphotosolutions.com/

http://www.infocusphotosolutions.com/

Tips & Techniques | MEDIA TRANSFER


When I was a kid my favorite part of our holiday gatherings was always after the meal when my grandfather would take out the home movies. I would watch in awe and feel great anticipation as he would thread the projector. Sometimes he would ask us, “What would you like to watch?”. My cousins and I would

shout out the topic of our favorite film, such as “Our trip to the New York City World Fair”, or “Mom all dressed up”. AND LIKE MAGIC, THERE SHE WAS ON SCREEN in her brightly colored 1960’s outfits, iconic cat glasses,

wearing the beehive wiglet that added five inches to her already enormously high hair!

home (movies) for the

HOLIDAYS

BY RHONDA VIGEANT

35inFOCUS FALL 2015

When there was a new film that we had not yet seen, we were really excited and maybe a bit nervous. Would there be some footage of me on there that I would feel embarrassed about?

As he carefully loaded the reel on the projector, there are things that I would see, smell, and hear. We would lower all the shades and make the room as dark as possible. Sometimes he would have to rewind the film because it was not done after the last viewing. That hollow, steady projector sound is so distinct that even today when I hear it (as I do each week as the familiar sound opens my podcast, The Home Move Legacy Project) it brings me right back to my grandparents’ living room. Sometimes Papa might splice two or three small reels together by using a small tool that was about the size of a deck of cards. It had special sticky tape and a blade that could cut though the film. Combining the small reels to fit on a larger reel was convenient so he would not have to change out the 3-inch reel every three and a half minutes - and we would get a longer show!

I remember that sometimes during this living room cinema experience the film would break and you would hear the crisp SNAP or the light bulb in the projector would blow. You might smell the film burning a little, if the

projector bulb got too hot. Sometimes the belt that made the reels move would pop off causing the film to spool off the reel and onto the floor. I remember Papa would almost always be able to fix whatever happened and we would be excited for the show to go on. In fact, Papa was part of the show as he would narrate for us and tell us about some of the people in the films.

The most magical experience was when we would watch the 16mm reels from the 1940’s from before I was born. The experience of getting to see my great grandmother whom I am named after but had never met, felt surreal. She looked so alive and I loved how I could see a family resemblance in her eyes and smile. Though she looked ancient dressed in typical garb from the “old country”, she had a familiarity about her that I could connect with.

I loved to hear the stories about her from my mother and grandparents. On these oldest films I also loved seeing my mom as a child, my grandparents raising their young family and my many aunts and uncles, so young, playful, and in love. They always seemed to have so much fun at the beach, in the backyard, and being silly in their daily lives.

For me, my home movies that span five generations create a legacy for my

children and future grandchildren that is the undisputable physical evidence of how we lived. As I have been on my own journey of self-discovery I have had a few big aha moments and insight about some relationships and personality traits that I discovered by watching our family home movies. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a home movie is worth a million!

There is no better gift this holiday season than to continue the tradition of sharing our family home movies. For most of us, gone are the days of setting up film projectors that may have fallen into disrepair, or are simply inaccessible. This is probably a good thing, as these old projectors could damage or scratch the film, especially if it is brittle, shrunken or dirty.

Today, when we think about bringing our home movies home for the holidays, technology provides so many opportunities to share these priceless films with our families in interesting and creative ways. While we still love the experience of watching the films with our families, it is not always easy to get everyone together, but we can still have a shared experience!

We already share pictures with friends and family over the Internet and upload them instantly from our electronic devices. Why not do the

http://www.starworldwidenetworks.com/index.php/Shows/detail/HMLP

http://www.starworldwidenetworks.com/index.php/Shows/detail/HMLP

Tips & Techniques | MEDIA TRANSFER


same with your home movies on film and tape? Technology has given us the ability to share our legacy in a way never before possible. Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Create a high quality HD digital master of your home movies by having them scanned and downloaded to an EHD (External Hard Drive) as data files such as .mov (like ProRes). Once your archive is mastered in this way, we have so much flexibility as to how our families can watch it. Grandma might prefer a DVD copy burned into a disc from the files. Mom wants to watch them on her iPad, kids on their iPhones, and some people may prefer an online platform. Give each family member a copy of the scanned home movies on their own drive, so they can edit projects that tell a story. Most new computers come with editing software built in.

2. Edit compelling projects. Imagine yourself as head of your own studio, editing your home movies to tell a specific story. Just like in the studios, the editor has the power to bring a story together in a creative and emotional way. With all the tools readily available on your home computer, it is easy to repurpose your original films into an edited story by theme or person. Make a Christmas video card selecting

favorite clips from past Christmases. You will be surprised how easy and fun it can be to use iMovie or Adobe Premier. Add some holiday music. Upload the completed video card to Vimeo and send everyone a link via email.

You might want to create other projects such as “Family Weddings Through The Generations” or “The Fabulous Fifty’s”. How about a “Home Grown History Project” that tells the story of your community through the eyes of the people and fostering collaboration between families? Give each family member their own hard drive to edit the story they want to tell. An added benefit is one drive becomes back up for additional hard drives. Creating your own short story or music video can be amazingly fun, easy, and a great way to re-purpose original content into funny, serious, or loving stories to share with your family. This makes an amazing gift for birthdays or holidays.

Have a “RED CARPET EVENT” over the holidays or at your next family reunion. Give out awards to people in the films. Best actor, best actress, best comedy, and best dancer, best family vacation, and best-dressed, best hair-do!

Be READY for a celebration or a memorial. Edited clips of

THE BEST WAY TO CREATE, SHARE & CARE FOR YOUR HOME MOVIES

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37inFOCUS FALL 2015

RHONDA VIGEANT is a home movie expert, passionate about raising awareness regarding why these reels are so important. They are a time machine that holds transformational power to shift lives and beliefs about how we lived. Rhonda teaches best practices for moving this aging analog material into our digital lives. She is Vice President of Marketing at Pro8mm, a Burbank, CA company long recognized as a leader in the entertainment industry for preserving and transferring millions of feet of legacy footage. She is the author of GET REEL ABOUT YOUR HOME MOVIE LEGACY…before it’s Too Late! a speaker, radio show host , teacher and consultant. Her mantra is “every frame matters, every reel matters, every life matters”. Access her blogs and podcasts at www.homemovielegacy.com, [email protected]

an individual have also been used to lovingly portray ones life and help families heal through hard times when a loved one passes. A montage video of the person’s life can play at a memorial service, giving friends and family comfort through the moving images and happy times of a person’s life. And guess what? You CAN have your living family member help create what will eventually be shown. It is a powerful way to connect with a person and have them have a say in how they wish to be remembered.

3. Create a family YouTube or Vimeo channel. It is free and easy to set up a YouTube or Vimeo site dedicated to your home movies. You will get a dedicated web page that can be set as private or public. Have family members “tag” names, places, dates, and events in the clip. This gets everyone engaged in the footage. These tags (key words) will come up in the Google search. This might help long lost family members reconnect with you! Bonus! When a video clips live in “the cloud,” it makes a great back up of your files at no charge!

4. Share home movies on social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. You can access your home movies easily on your smart phone or tablet from these sites. Pass around your device at the next family gathering and see the reaction your family will have! 1945 can meet 2015! This works perfectly when media is transferred and recorded to an Apple TV (.m4v) file format.

5. Funding your digital mastering and restoration project: Technology has given us the ability to share our legacy in a way never before possible, and there couldn’t be a more exciting time. Many families are overwhelmed by the expense of treating their home movies like the studios would, even though in their hearts, they know that is what they would like to do. There are now several options to get funding for your home movie transfer!

Crowd funding: Online fundraising platforms are where you create a campaign to raise money for personal projects. These include Kickstarter, Indigogo and Go Fund Me. Someone in your family may want to organize raising money from friends and family members to cover the cost of scanning your home movie legacy by a company that specializes in professional scanning. This is an innovative and effective way for family members, friends and interested parties to collaborate and raise funds for the transfer. You have your own landing page where you can add a video talking about your family and why this project is important. The family archivist can have one roll of home movies transferred to high quality HD, 2K or 4K files and then share the scan with family members on the site. Families get really excited and invested in the project when they see the stunning results of what the films look like when digitally remastered and color corrected. After all, we are getting more sophisticated in our media consumption because so many of us have HD flat screens.

Find out what other family members have and ask the scanning facility to estimate the cost. Set a family budget for the fundraising and discuss how that cost could be shared. People can donate to the project online. Often there are rewards for the donation that you would set. These could be DVD copies, a family photo, or all the material loaded on a hard drive.

Stock Footage: Could your family home movies be worth money? You bet they can! A single clip of 8mm film sold on Getty Images for over $5,000! How is that possible you may ask? Filmmakers and documentarians are often looking for authentic archival 8mm and Super8mm clips that capture specific events, people, time periods and so much more. This is a win/win so they don’t have to go to the added expense of re-creating them for a project and the content contributor (you) earns

revenue and shares amazing material with a wider audience, These clips are called stock footage and are made available to the public by posting short clips onto the web. When transferred professionally, there is a greater likelihood that your clips could be purchased and downloaded for use in a documentary, films, television shows, and more. As long as the films are your original material, your home movies could be the most valuable asset in your attic! Stock footage platforms include Getty Images, Pond5, and many more!

Hopefully you have got some of your own ideas from this article. Pick one for the holidays and stay inspired all year! As you may have figured out, this is just a short list among dozens of applications for watching, editing, playing and funding your home movie project. So what are you waiting for?

© Rhonda Vigeant, Pro8mm 2015.

http://www.pro8mm.com/

http://www.homemovielegacy.com

http://www.homemovielegacy.com

mailto:[email protected]

Dealing with a CryptoWall Virus Ransom

Tips & Techniques | TECHNOLOGY

BY SHERYL HULLINGS


Dealing with a CryptoWall Virus Ransom

As photo organizers, we may get a plea for help from a client who is unable to view or edit their digital photos. I got such a call from a close friend recently and dropped by her home to take a look. What I discovered made me want to run right back out the door!

The Windows PC was infected by CryptoWall. Clicking on a link in what appeared to be a legitimate package delivery email seemed to be the point of entry onto her PC. I did find her computer was protected with anti-virus software, but the Network Attached Storage (NAS) device connected to the PC was not protected and it housed her large photo collection. I believe she discovered the situation before more damage was done, as only a portion of a mapped network drive was affected.

What Is CryptoWall?

CryotoWall is a Trojan horse that uses the RSA-2048 encryption algorithm to encrypt files on a computer. The threat typically arrives on the affected computer through spam emails that may appear to be legitimate businesses, email links, outdated browser plugins, malicious ads, compromised sites, or other malware. It then asks the user to pay a ransom to have the files decrypted.

CryptoWall attacks files on any storage connected to an infected computer, including flash drives, external drives, or mapped network drives - any drive that is assigned a drive letter. Files modified by the virus will propagate to cloud-based storage via automated backups.

The malware runs each time the computer restarts. It encrypts files with common PC file extensions and places two files containing instructions for obtaining the decryption key in each folder it encrypts. These files are: HELP_DECRYPT.png and a HELP_DECRYPT URL shortcut for paying the ransom.

As a final step, CryptoWall will stop the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) that controls the backup and restoration of data on the computer. It also deletes the existing saved changes to make it even more difficult to recover files through a system restore.

To shield the attacker’s identity, the attacker’s site is hosted on an anonymous network and bitcoins (a digital currency used to purchase goods and services) are used to pay the ransom. The cost of the ransom usually starts at $500 and increases the longer the user delays payment. It is a personal decision to pay the ransom or not. Ultimately, one must decide if value of the data lost is greater than the ransom demand. Also, there is no guarantee the attacker will provide a valid decryption key to recover the files once the ransom is paid.

39inFOCUS FALL 2015

Tips & Training | TECHNOLOGY

The Recovery Process

Recovery from CryptoWall is a time-consuming process. The steps involved depend on the extent of the damage and available backups.

1. Disconnect any mapped network drives and external hard drives from the infected computer in hopes of mitigating additional damage.

2. Remove the malware. CryptoWall lurks in the user’s AppData/Roaming folder and may also make entries into Windows’ Registry. Use the computer’s anti-virus software to do a full system scan to rid the PC of the ransomware and viruses. Should this fail, Norton’s Power Eraser, or something similar, may be needed or to seek technical assistance from the anti-virus vendor.

3. Reconnect the disconnected network and external hard drives. Run a full anti-virus scan on these to be sure the drives are virus-free.

Once CryptoWall is removed, only the encrypted data files remain. Anti-virus software is unable to repair the data files. At this time, decryption is only achievable by paying the ransom on the Decryption Service site.

4. Assess the damage and prepare a checklist of the infected drives and folders. How many folders are encrypted on all attached drives? Is there a backup available? Is there a recent unencrypted full system backup that can be restored? Were encrypted files propagated to cloud-storage or other automated backups?

5. For each affected drive, separate the infected folders from the non-infected folders. Do not delete the infected files or folders yet as they do not pose any danger. It is better to create a directory with the name “infected” and move all infected folders to this location. This will provide a way to verify the success and progress of the restore process.

6. Begin the restore process. The restore process should go easily if there is a full backup in the same format as what was lost. If not, restoration will take much longer.

My friend’s situation was the latter—her backups were not recent and not cloud-based. Though she had almost all of the files backed up, she had moved her photo collection to a network drive, created a

new directory structure, moved files to new folders, and had begun to import the folders into Adobe Lightroom.

Lightroom’s previews and Windows’ viewer allowed us to compare the directories during the restore process. Together, we spent three days restoring the photos and doing directory comparisons to ensure we recovered every file possible. In the end, she lost 58 photos. She is now regularly backing up the network drive and running anti-virus software on all connected drives.

If the restore process had come from a cloud service, we would have needed to use a backup version prior to the date and time of the infection. Be aware that some cloud services, like Dropbox, store a local version of the data on the host computer and this data could also be encrypted.

7. Once satisfied with the restore process, delete the infected file folders.

Though the outcome of my friend’s disaster was positive, it was also preventable by being a savvier Internet user. Recovery time could have been minimized if a more vigilant data protection plan was in place. Preventative measures and data protection plans include:

1. Install anti-virus software updated with the latest definition files and actively running on all drives assigned a drive letter.

2. Install a malware scanner, preferably with active scanning capabilities and updated with the latest definition files. This provides an extra level of protection.

3. Use safe Internet practices—stay away from questionable websites and don’t click on emails or links found in emails from people you don’t know.

4. Use two backup processes: a local external hard drive and cloud-based backup service using automated backups.

For greater protection, the local external hard drive backup should be disconnected and stored safely when not in use. This requires extra work to ensure these backups are done with regularity. Backing up the data more frequently is necessary when making significant changes to a folder structure.


Security software vendors consider CryptoWall-type malware to be one of the most dangerous threats to both consumers and organizations. It has been a huge financial success for its creators and has prompted other cyber-criminals to follow suit. Unfortunately, we can expect these threats to continue. Our job, as organizers, business owners, and consumers, is

SHERYL HULLINGS is a 38-year information technology veteran specializing in software application development, systems implementation, disaster recovery processes, and management of an Enterprise Systems Development Department. Since retiring, Sheryl spends her time catching up on family tree research, taking classes (photography, Photoshop, and ProShow Producer), scanning and organizing her family’s photos, as well as the many other family photo boxes left at her house for safe-keeping. Combining this experience with a passion for photo-related projects led her to join APPO earlier this year and started Focus Photo Solutions based in Upland, California.

to emphasize to others that a solid backup plan is the most effective method to recover data files. We don’t know when a disaster will occur, but we can be certain it will happen will little or no advance warning. The better the backup process, the easier, faster, and less painful recovering from a technology disaster will be.

41inFOCUS FALL 2015

For Capturing Your Best Holiday Images

In Every Issue | PHOTOGRAPHER NICK KELSH

For Capturing Your Best Holiday Images

BY PHOTOGRAPHER NICK KELSH

Seasoned Advice


“The magic hour is magical regardless of where you are.”

1. Time of DayI suppose it’s no coincidence that the Season of Light happens at the time of the year when the sun is going down in the late afternoon. If you can deal with operating your camera as your fingers freeze the photo possibilities are endless.

Photographers describe that thirty or forty minutes when buildings and electric lights glow and there’s still some light in the sky as The Magic Hour. if you’re going to photograph any kind of holiday lighting this year do it then. Get all your gear ready and get out there just as it’s getting dark and plant yourself where you can see Christmas lights and sky and you will impress not just yourself but your friends and neighbors.

And it doesn’t matter if you do it in the city or the country. The magic hour is magical regardless of where you are.

2. DetailsIf you are at all inclined to send out a holiday greeting card you don’t need cute little children smiling those gaudy smiles to photograph. (Hey, enough of those people with cute kids! Seen one, seen them all, I always say!)

We have a dear friend and an accomplished photographer who photographs a little holiday detail every year and sends us what is always among the most beautiful cards we re-ceive. There’s hardly a human being to be found yet she captures the feeling of comradeship and community every year. They are pictures of people without people. Just beautiful.

And don’t rule out black and white. Yes, I know, the holidays are loaded with color, but that’s why a simple, elegant black-and-white picture jumps out of the pile of greeting cards.



“That waiting time has made for some wonderful familyphotographs.”

3. KidsBut if you are stuck with some delightful little angels at Christmas, you have spontaneous and posed possibilities galore. Using a Christmas tree as a light source can be a wonderful way to pose children for a Norman Rockwell portrait.

A Kelsh family tradition on Christmas morning is to torture the boys by not letting them come into the living room to see what Santa has brought until 7 AM. (Oh, who am I kidding? It’s usually closer to 6:30 AM.) That waiting time has made for some wonderful family photographs. The last thing I do on Christmas Eve is plug my camera in right next to the bottom of the staircase.

4. Drive in the CountryRural America is a spectacular place to go for a photo safari alone or with photographer friends. The hours between 2 PM and 6 PM can be magical as you drive through small-town streets and off the beaten path country roads in search of photographic treasure. Even a wreath hanging next to some chipped paint says something about the human spirit.


5. Gift for NeighborFinally, and perhaps my favorite suggestion for the holidays, is to sneak a photograph of the neighbor kids when they’re poking around your house, so the kids can hide a framed print under the tree on Christmas.

Garrison Keillor once said that you can solve all of your holiday gift giving problems with a couple of hours in a good bookstore. The same goes for your camera. Every single gift you give this Christmas could be created with your camera.

And honestly, they don’t even have to be that good; the act of secretly shooting a photo-graph for someone you care about is a powerful seasonal statement regardless of your photographic skill.

Happy holidays to everyone associated with APPO from the Kelsh family— Nick, Anne, Alexander, and Teddy. See you in Anaheim in 2016!

NICK KELSH is a nationally renowned photographer and the author of nine

books, including the bestselling Naked Babies and Siblings. He has appeared

numerours times on Oprah and The Today Show. Nick lives in Philadelphia

with his wife, Anne, and is the father of three sons. For more information visit

www.howtophotographyourlife.com.


http://www.howtophotographyourlife.com

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