The simple answer is we keep your photos for as as we can. We still have the final photos from every wedding and engagement session that we have photographed.

The more complicated answer is that we shoot all photos in a RAW format. RAW format produces a digital image file that captures more detail and allows us to make more adjustments in the computer. The only downside to RAW is that it produce a very large file and since we take thousands and thousands of images, archiving these files on the computer can be troublesome. While we use this RAW file in the short term to make our adjustments on the computer, we output a high-resolution JPEG version of the photo, which is what we consider our “finished product.” We use this JPEG for everything from the albums, prints, slideshows, blog post, etc. This is what we provide to our clients which we call “High Resolution Files.” A year after the wedding, we will dispose of the RAW files. While we keep these JPEG files for our use, we are not responsible for archiving your images once you have downloaded them from our servers.

In case you were wondering, we shoot all of our personal family photos directly in JPEG format.