How to Manage a Million Photos

Nature photographer Daniel J. Cox runs Natural Exposures, a travel company that brings small groups on photo tours to some of the most spectacular places on Earth — and has been named the “World’s Leading Specialist Holiday Company.” He and his wife and business partner, Tanya, take as many as 18 trips a year. Along the way, Cox has taken an astonishing number of images himself, and now manages a library of more than a million photos.

“We’re known for bringing our guests up close to amazing landscapes and wildlife,” he says. “We help them learn about conservation, how to take great photographs, and maybe even something about themselves.” The company promises guests, “Memories you’ll never forget — and the pictures to prove it.”

How does Natural Exposures use Mylio to help run the business?

Mylio was built for sharing images between devices, which our business does. But we’re also putting a twist on that by sharing them between our office staff. Before Mylio, that was not possible.

How does Mylio help with photo trip marketing and sales?

My wife does all of our trip planning and logistics. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been on a plane to, say, Australia. She’s busy planning a trip to, say, Madagascar, and needs images for marketing. She’ll lean over and ask, “Do you have any Madagascar images?” I show her where to find them on her Mylio-enabled device. And just like that, she has access to all of them.

Another scenario is that while most of my work in Mylio is done on my laptop, I use it on my iPad for show-and-tell. I can sit down with people who are thinking about taking a trip and show them what they can expect.

How has Mylio helped your business?

It’s made us faster. I’ve got about a million images in my library so I use Mylio for finding images quickly. Both the rocket-fast search tool and the simple calendar tool get a lot of use. I recommend Mylio to any small business for three reasons: volume, speed, and support.

Why is speed so important to you?

Since we manage so many images, loading time could be a real problem for us. But the thing that’s so phenomenal about Mylio is that I can scroll through my one million images at real speed. Anyone who works with Lightroom knows the frustration of having the little beach ball come up after only 50 images. Aperture was pretty fast, but when I go back to it now, after using Mylio, I can hardly stand how long it takes to load images.

How do you store and access photos while traveling?

When I’m in the field, I carry a 4 terabyte (TB) external USB hard drive, which is a Mylio-enabled device. Mylio puts thumbnails and previews of my library there. With this setup, I’ve only used 2TB so far for the nearly one million images. This drive goes everywhere I go, and I also use it to store new originals when on a trip. When I get back home, all the originals get transferred to the office setup.

In the office, we use a Mac Pro and a Mac Mini, each connected to a 50 TB Drobo, each replicating across to the other. The Drobos are where I keep my original images because I have too many for my main machines or laptops. I recently moved the Mac Mini from the office to my home, and I sync it with the other devices across the internet. This gives me one offsite backup of my originals.

What’s your experience with Mylio customer support?

If you’ve ever run your own business, then you’ve been your own IT person, and you know how important it is to speak to a real human and get the help you need. Mylio has great people available to help if we get stuck. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to reach Adobe with a question, only to find that there’s literally no phone number to call.

Is there an unexpected benefit to using Mylio?

Definitely. While looking through images for the business, I often find myself coming across family stuff. Oh my gosh: There’s Mom 15 years ago! There are our wedding pictures! There’s our son when he was three — and now he’s in college! These memories weren’t easily available to me before. I’m enjoying this side benefit so much that I share these photos on my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds with the hashtag #myliomemories.