World renowned surf photographer Todd Glaser shares how Lacie hard drives streamline his workflow. With the help of LaCie Rugged drives and his LaCie 6big Thunderbolt 3, he can protect his footage from the elements, upload and edit content lightning fast, and centralize tons of files into one space. The result? Freedom to spend more time shooting and surfing—and less time behind his computer.
Todd shares his thoughts with us here and in the video above — take a gander.
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Every morning I wake up, I make coffee at home, then I drive down and look at the surf and I’ll either decide to shoot photos, or I’ll decide to go surfing. We all kind of congregate in the parking lot in the mornings and figure out what we’re gonna do for the day.
I spend a lot of my time behind the camera making pictures and I travel the world to take them. For the last nine years I’ve worked for Surfer magazine as one of their staff photographers. I have an image in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian, and my work has been featured in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ. I’ve been able to stay busy.
My workflow involves surviving the elements and lots of backup
My first introduction to external hard drives was the LaCie Rugged. I travel, I spend a ton of time around the water and the beach, and I need something that will withstand all the elements. It’s the first one I bought, and I’ve probably bought forty of them since.
When you’re in the field, depending on your production, it’s hard to put a monetary value on your footage. A lot of the images that we capture are one-time images; they’re timeless images. It’s not the cost for me to fly to Tahiti to shoot that shoot — it’s all those expenses, plus waiting another ten years for that swell to happen.
Backing up is everything. You’re only as good as the last image that you shot. And I think part of the reason why I’ve been able to be successful as a photographer is I take it very seriously. As long as I don’t misplace the hard drives, then those images that we capture wherever we are in the world, are going to come back with us safely. And that’s the most important thing.
Storing, editing and managing my entire portfolio
When I work mobile, being able to travel light and efficiently and safely is really important. But when I’m home, I want to be able to spend as little time as I can on the computer, so I can go out and be shooting more, planning more shoots or just going surfing and hanging with my friends or with my wife.
The LaCie 6big has helped my workflow a lot. It’s enabled me to centralize all the images from the Rugged hard drives that I use while traveling on the road into one space. There’s actually six drives in it, so it’s lightning quick when I connect to my computer at home.
I’m able to backup all the images that I’ve shot over my entire career. With the 60 terabytes, I have got a lot more shooting to do before it fills up entirely.
The ultimate goal of using the best gear
You know, the ultimate goal is to have fun — I love going out and shooting; I don’t love sitting behind the computer and editing. I want my images to load quickly, so I can work on them quickly and get them out, then go out and go play outside more!
What’s new:
I just released my first full-length coffee table book, PROXIMITY, which reveals the purest moments captured behind the scenes of the much anticipated new surfing film of the same name by director Taylor Steele. Illuminating some of the most iconic surfers of the modern era, PROXIMITY features current and former surfing world champions along with globetrotting freesurf stars in striking color and black and white film. I curated my favorite shots highlighting famous locales and lesser-known gems, high-action surfing and intimate looks into the minds of Kelly Slater, John John Florence, Stephanie Gilmore, Dave Rastovich, Shane Dorian, Albee Layer, Rob Machado and Craig Anderson.
