Just wondering

[Maria 60]

I'm just wondering what does everyone use when taking pictures when dolled up? My children don't know about my dressing and I'm not to technology inclined. As of now I still use an older camara and download the pictures to a older laptop that has no internet excess. I then store the pictures in a password secure memory card. I took some pictures recently and I'm struggling more and more with the older laptop and the picture quality isn't great. I don't know why I just don't trust iPhones, my sons favourite saying is "delete isnt always delete". I have some older iphones with no SIM cards in them but I'm just not educated enough with this and just don't trust. The problem is as of now when I need help with my phone my children fix it for me and I hand over the phone with confidence. I'm not sure if I will have that same confidence if I do take pictures and if delete really does delete. When I ask my children this question they automatically ask what I'm I doing that I'm worried about. Lol.

[bridget thronton]

If your kids are grown might be easier to tell them rather than have them find out by accident - at !east that was my wife's feeling (so I told them and they were OK with it - may or may not be true for your kids but if your wife is supportive it may)

A phone without a SIM card is as secure as a laptop without internet - it is easy to take pictures on the phone and move them to an SD card and de!ete them from the phone using an app like File Manager (free download for Android if it did not come preinstalled)

[Cheryl T]

I just use my iphone for everyday shots and if I'm doing a complete session with outfit changes then I set up my digital camera and tripod.
True delete doesn't mean delete but unless someone is trying to recover data for some reason then if you don't use the cloud and turn off your wifi on the phone it should just be for you.

[DianeT]

If you are using Windows, the iPhone once connected will show up as a standard Flash drive on the File Explorer and you can copy the photos and videos to a Flash card.
Beware, if you are using a recent iPhone you may get HEIC images instead of JPEG and a Windows PC won't know that format. To avoid this make sure you set the following on your iPhone (if you don't see it then you don't have a recent one and don't have this problem): Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC (at the bottom of the list) must be set to Automatic. This will ensure photos are exchanged as JPEG on a PC.
On a Mac you can simply use the Photos app to get your pictures from the phone and export them later to your SD card.

Also I must correct Bridget when she says no SIM card equals no Internet. You still have Internet via WiFi so you may want to turn WiFi off as well.
If you use WiFi and also (not recommended!) configured your usual account in iCloud, make sure you turn Photo Stream off (Settings > Photos > My Photo Stream). Because if it's on and there's another iGadget such as an iPad in your home configured with the same account, then surprise! Your photos taken on the iPhone will magically pop on the other device. Here goes your privacy.

ALSO: any cloud app such as Dropbox that has a tendency to lure you into saving your photos in the cloud will make said photos available to any other phone or computer connected to the same Dropbox (or whatever) account.

SO: for maximum privacy and minimal headaches, if you use this phone just to take pictures, I would advise to:
- Remove any cloud accounts and cloud apps (iCloud, Google, Dropbox, OneDrive etc.). Uninstall the apps, and remove the accounts (Settings > Passwords and accounts). Alternately, if you have no unsaved precious data on the phone, you can also erase it completely (Settings > Reset > Erase all contents or settings /// WARNING no going back, here. Check that there are no photos left to secure). This will erase all apps and accounts. When doing the initial configuration after this, make sure you decline to configure an iCloud account.
- Turn off WIFI. And to make sure it doesn't reconnect accidentally: Settings > WiFi, click the (i) icon next to each network and select Forget This Network. The phone will lose the password of the WiFi and won't be able to connect anymore even if you enable the WiFi by accident.
Hope this helps guarding your privacy.

[Micki_Finn]

I just use my iPhone, but I then post the pics on social media so as many people as possible can see them. “Do you think I look like this just so I can exist in your feeble memory? HA! Take a picture and it’ll last forever!”

[BobbiKay]

Well, the thrift stores are closed at the moment, but it is not uncommon to find, say, a 5 megapixel camera for a few bucks that might be an upgrade for you. I use an older laptop with a solid-state drive upgrade, and Linux Mint in place of the unsupported Windows version it came with. Works great for me.

[Star01]

I have two digital SLR bodies and a collection of various size lenses along with a digital with fixed lens. I transfer them to my desktop computer and secure my files with a password protected open source encryption program. The password is memorized and nobody would ever guess it. The encryption program allows directories and sub directories and supports creation of virtual drives whatever size the user desires. The program also supports putting the container files on a thumb drive or external hard drive and accessing them on any computer that has the encryption program is installed on.

I wish there was a way to encrypt my lady things as the encrypted files will never be accessed but my clothing stash will never be that secure.

[docrobbysherry]

A camera is easier and safer to use for Sherry's photos.:battingeyelashes:

They'll never accidently be seen by anyone.

They r saved forever on separate SD cards. Then, saved again after being loaded securely into my computer for editing.

Then, all photos, including edited ones, r saved a 3rd time on an external hard drive.:thumbsup:

[Patience]

I use a regular point and shoot digital camera for my photoshoots at home and a discontinued rechargeable card-sized portable camera for my on-the-road selfies, although I will use it for photoshoots as well. (You can see it on my profile pic).

I never use my smartphone, though. On my very first outing dressed, I asked some ladies to take a picture of me out enfemme. To my horror, the device uploaded the images automatically to a Google plus account. Luckily, they were unpublished, pending approval, but that was enough for me. No smartphone pic for me, thank you very much.

[DianeT]

One word of advice also: if data is precious, you should have two copies of it on a different media. SD cards do not last forever. And wrong manipulations also happen.

[Majella St Gerard]

I just use my cell phone and then transfer to my laptop, I also post on my social media, anything X-rated I keep to myself. Must be hard living in the closet.
The truth will set you free.

[Judy-Somthing]

A few years ago I decided to get a half decent camera, so I got a Nikon D3100 used.
I also got a strobe with a lighting umbrella.
It's so nice to have nice photos!

[Leslie Mary S]

I use my studio Nikon D5300 camera all the time. But I use a special 128 Gig Flash drive. After a shooting session I first move them from the SD card to a special file on the computer for editing. I do the edditing through the night. Once edited I MOVE them to a special 2T external hard drive. The hard drive is not attached to the computer except while processing/searching. I have 5 of thes small external drives. A pair of them are where I store my model Photo shoots after I give the model a flash drive with everything shot, both good and bad, and small watermarkedd files of the edited file, The have to buy the big 'watermark free' prints from me. Some models have tried to have prinys made from the gally set and they were not allowed.

[Taylor Dame]

I use a Nikon D750, and store my photos in a password protected encrypted folder on my computer. Unless someone figures out the password, they can't access them.

[bridget thronton]

I don't mind being corrected Diane - but my comment about the phone without a SIM card being as safe as laptop was based on the fact that you need to enable Wi-Fi explicitly to access the internet on both - I never let my phone connect to random public Wi-Fi by itself.

[Rachelakld]

I wish I still had my Nikon :(

Wife has iPhone, we have deleted the old photos of our Europe trip 6 years ago, 5 times, but they still came back until wife forgot her password and had to set up a new account, so the photos will sit in cyberspace forever, with no owner.

I just use my android phone, it's kinda fun sometimes.
Other times, the oil from my fingers swiping the camera as well as the apps, makes selfie photos blurry.

311902

[DianeT]

I don't mind being corrected Diane - but my comment about the phone without a SIM card being as safe as laptop was based on the fact that you need to enable Wi-Fi explicitly to access the internet on both - I never let my phone connect to random public Wi-Fi by itself.
Sorry then. People usually connect their phone to their home Wifi automatically so I mentioned this possibility of going online without necessarily knowing, especially if the device was obtained from a previous user who configured it this way.

[Helen_Highwater]

Maria,

I would suggest, should your circumstances allow, buying a new compact digital camera. Even those at the lower end of the range sport a features such as 20 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, Wide-angle Lens, Ultra-compact, HD movies. Also most manufacturers offer dedicated s/w to download and manage the pics on a PC. One feature I would look for is a self timer. Even on an old laptop I would expect to see much better quality results.

For you as someone who, pardon me for saying this, doesn't seem tech savvy, steering away from using a phone will avoid any danger of pics finding their way onto the cloud or into the public domain by accident.

[DianeT]

The advantage of a phone compared to a camera is in shooting videos. Often way better (stabilization, sound) than cameras.

[Lydianne]

I noticed i split the infinitives and decided to correct the grammar. Aren?t you glad I told you?

When I was younger, I used to think it sounded slick. Now that I'm older, I also try to avoid it. The problem, though, is when you have adverb + verb infinitive. Trying to rephrase it is difficult because:

A phrase like "I used to really love it" could become "I really used to love it."

However, the problem is ambiguity of what the "really" gets tied to: the "used to" or the "love". In this case, context and common usage makes it more likely to bind to the "love", but you can't always rely on that. So you go for: "I used to love it really", which just sounds either strange or protesty. That irks me less than the splittage though.

- L.

[Aunt Kelly]

Maria,

I would suggest, should your circumstances allow, buying a new compact digital camera. Even those at the lower end of the range sport a features such as 20 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, Wide-angle Lens, Ultra-compact, HD movies. Also most manufacturers offer dedicated s/w to download and manage the pics on a PC. One feature I would look for is a self timer. Even on an old laptop I would expect to see much better quality results.

For you as someone who, pardon me for saying this, doesn't seem tech savvy, steering away from using a phone will avoid any danger of pics finding their way onto the cloud or into the public domain by accident.

Sage advice, Helen. Modern point-and-shoot digital cameras will take amazing pictures. Amazon lists dozens of them, starting at about $50. You can find quality name-brand cameras, like this one (https://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-Digital-Camera-Stabilization/dp/B019UDHT6U/), for not much more.

And if one is not "tech savvy", using a smartphone for digital pictures which one would prefer to remain verifiably private is a bad bet. Virtually all of the image handling software on most mobile phones is cryptic, at best, in what it does with your images. Yes, some can be rendered reasonably "safe" for such private images, but that can be a challenge, even for seasoned users.

[Cheryl T]

One word of advice also: if data is precious, you should have two copies of it on a different media. SD cards do not last forever. And wrong manipulations also happen.

Definitely good advice.
We went on vacation a few years ago and my wife took a full series of photos of me. They were fabulous!
When we came home I copied them to my computer and checked them and they were fine. I deleted them from the camera and then a few days later went to edit some of the shots and they were ALL destroyed. They were somehow corrupted and can't be opened. I tried other software to recover them to no avail.
Always have multiple backups. That goes for just the regular things on your computer as well.

[Debra Russell]

I really used to be a little paranoid about pics and how and what and where - all of the usual paranoia that we all go through. My solution was to learn and study the technology until I understood the reality of my fears, most of which were unfounded if I went about it thoughtfully. What I found is for the most part password protection and photo apps can offer as much anonymity as needed; any if someone is digging that deep - what are they looking for ??? really ! and unless you have a warrant out, you really don't have to worry. As for back ups, if I want to I have a usbc/usb drive that plugs directly into my phone to download on; otherwise google is my friend (but be careful) ………………...Debra

[GaleWarning]

I see no-one has mentioned what, to me, seems the first and most obvious thing to do.
Maria, it's time to buy a new laptop computer to access the internet, and move your existing internet-using laptop into the role of your older laptop.
You will be amazed at how much lighter modern laptops are and how much faster things get done, because they no longer have their own individual hard drives.
And they are a lot cheaper than they used to be.

Simply save the data on you existing older computer without internet access onto the computer you are currently using to access the internet.
Then take the advice given by others on this thread.

[Pumped]

I use my cell phone and send them to my home computer then delete them. I access my cloud once in a while and make sure they are gone. It would be bad as it is a company phone, but my company is different. Nobody ever checks my phone and if I ever quit I am certain I would keep the phone and phone number and my replacement employee would start with a new phone and number.

It is funny, I was staying at a motel and dressed up in some "kinky" clothing. I thought i looked pretty "hot" and took a picture and sent it to my wife. I deleted the pic, and the email. The next day I used my phone and the pic popped up! I spent the next half hour deleting the cloud and scouring my my phone and told my wife she might want to do the same! From here on out I make sure when I take pics I chop off my head and take pics from the neck down.

By the way, my wife liked the pic. The next weekend she had me dress up in the same outfit and we she took advantage of me! The things I go through for her! ;-)

[Patience]

Let me also say that while Digital SLR (single lens reflex) cameras are great and all, they are not so practical for those of us who crossdress in public. In that situation you’ll be better off with a portable device that will fit easily into a handbag or purse. I have yet to see an SLR that enhances one's feminine appearance as a fashion accessory.


When I was younger, I used to think it sounded slick. Now that I'm older, I also try to avoid it. The problem, though, is when you have adverb + verb infinitive. Trying to rephrase it is difficult because:

A phrase like "I used to really love it" could become "I really used to love it."

However, the problem is ambiguity of what the "really" gets tied to: the "used to" or the "love". In this case, context and common usage makes it more likely to bind to the "love", but you can't always rely on that. So you go for: "I used to love it really", which just sounds either strange or protesty. That irks me less than the splittage though.

- L.

I think about those things all the time as well, Lydianne. In fact, when I joined this forum, I used to be a bit annoyed at how folks in this forum are such sticklers when it comes to language, but I guess it’s in everybody’s interest that we are all able to communicate clearly. I may even have gotten better at expressing myself since I joined this site.

I wasn’t sure if folks read those replies or not. I just hate to leave them blank. Thanks for the feedback.

-P.

[Leslie Mary S]

I to tend to correct my post both in spelling (speling) and grammar (grammer)

[MiniRock]

Hi Maria,
I save all my photos to my paid-for Microsoft cloud account, regardless of what device I use to take them. In the case of my phone, I set it to upload automatically. It means I can delete them from the phone almost immediately. Nothing is lost and the phone doesn't get full. I sort them out later on-line using a browser - when I can be bothered. Everything goes, even rude stuff. And sure, maybe Microsoft will keep everything for future historians or security agencies to browse, but so what? As long as their security keeps everybody else out, which it will if one uses two-factor-identication, I'm happy.
The problem of course is that it does require a modicum of technology familiarity, so I guess it won't help you unless you're prepared to learn a little.
Incidentally, you can use the Microsoft cloud for nothing, but the amount of data you can store is limited. You might find it enough though. All you need is a Microsoft email address and you get it automatically.
Of course, Google, Apple and many others provide similar services, but I particularly like the Microsoft web offering.
Mini

[JeanTG]

I use my iPhone. I don't keep the pics that don't turn out. Once deleted, you have to to into the "recently deleted" album and permanently delete them. Also turn off sharing. If you want to keep them, you can select to hide them. They will go into the "hidden" album in the albums section. If you're really worried, don't use iCloud to save them. Save them to your phone and then download them onto your computer, or better, on a detachable drive hooked up to your computer which you can lock in a cabinet somewhere.

Or just come out to everyone and then you don't have to worry ;)

[BrendaPDX]

Hi Maria,
I use a Fuji digital waterproof camera that has a time-laps feature. I set it up on a tripod at 15 seconds intervals, just enough time to change positions or try to smile better. I then take the chip out and transfer to a USB flash drive and delete the picks on the camera. You will end up with a lot of pictures, just delete the ones you don't want. I keep the USB safe and have the pictures in a password protected sub-directory.
Have fun, Brenda

[Stephanie D]

One word of advice also: if data is precious, you should have two copies of it on a different media. SD cards do not last forever. And wrong manipulations also happen.

YUP!!!
100% I had a very nice "photo-set" of different outfits and makeup that I put together over a long period.
I had it on a very high end thumb drive. It was password protected. Encrypted. Mil-Spec ruggedized. Secure...blablabla...

It all worked very well for a long time, then one day, removed it from the PC, tried it a few days later, and ZERO. Nothing was on the drive?????
I tried a few data-recovery attempts on my own, but nada!
All gone. :beatup:

I'm not a computer guru, but I know enough to know my way around various software/hardware issues.
but in short, I didn't follow my very own credo when it comes to work and family computer files: make sure to "back it up"!!!!