The fun of Throwback Thursdays goes way beyond just finding old photographs. Throwbacks are all about the memories they bring back. Whoever said you can never go back, didn't spend enough time looking at old photographs!

I'm not sure I'm right on the dates on this one but I know it's in the early '90's and I remember the show being WPPI. Jim Morton is the first one on the left and did an incredible job at every show getting the booth set up and giving each convention a more professional look for Hasselblad. 

I also found out when I left Hasselblad that Jim used to leave something easy to fix just to keep me out of his hair. There were always some prints to hang or straighten out, and for all those years I thought it was my talent for displays he needed! LOL But that's one more thing about Throwback Thursday, it brings back some incredible memories about the friendships that grow out of working together.

Mike Bowen is next to Jim. Mike and I worked together for many years at Polaroid. He came to work at Hasselblad and passed away much too young, 7-8 years ago. He was the Sales Manager for New England, and did an outstanding job. This was one of his first conventions in his new role.  

​And that brings me full circle to WPPI. I think this was the first year WPPI was at the RIO Hotel but it could also be the Tropicana. If somebody wants to challenge me on that, feel free. I noticed Art Leather's booth in the background. They were a powerhouse in the album business at that time and in fact, one of the biggest in the country. Plus, that year there were probably only 6-8 album companies doing business in the US. Ten years later there would be 40+ albums companies exhibiting at WPPI.

It was a fantastic show in the early days, even with attendance at approximately 3000 people. It was all about family. Every show was a reunion of great friends, educators, and attendees. Years later I'd have people tell me how the Hasselblad guys were always too well-dressed. I was told we became less intimidating when we went more casual. 

Take the time today and dig through a box of old pictures. If you use it for your blog content, make a point to remind "Mom," the target audience for most of you, how fast the kids are growing, and her family is changing. Plant the seed for a new family portrait this holiday season. And, if you don't want to share your throwbacks, still take the time to appreciate those old photographs.

We're in the business of helping people capture memories, and while that's such an over-used expression, so often we forget about the importance of taking our own trips down Memory Lane.

I left WPPI and Rangefinder Magazine in 2009 to follow a dream - starting my own business. We were in the middle of the worst recession, at least in my lifetime, and I was headed off to pursue a dream to fulfill my entrepreneurial spirit. For years I'd followed so many of you vicariously as business owners, and nine years ago we launched the first Skip's Summer School.

Most of my family thought I was nuts and there were more than just a few friends who felt the same way. But I ran across an anonymous quote around that time that says it all:

I've shared the group shot above in at least one other post, but this was the team who made it all happen that first summer. We started in Las Vegas at the MGM, and because of the economy at the time and Vegas hurting for business, there was no room block commitment, no minimum food or beverage and minimal charges for everything we needed as long as we booked rooms - and we did!

​I recently ran across a couple of photographs that bring back so many great memories from those summer programs. In 2010, Sarah Petty offered to fill in for Vicki Taufer, which brings back a whole story of its own. Here's the short version - Vicki and Jed were adopting their daughter and got caught in an immigration challenge and couldn't bring her back into the US for several months. Vicki stayed overseas, and Sarah jumped in to save summer school with an outstanding program. The story goes a lot deeper as dozens of photographers in the industry tried to help with letters to congressman, immigration officials, and a non-stop push to get Vicki home.

Friendships are the best part of this industry, and Kay Eskridge spoke that year as well. We kept the program simple with one big room, no breakouts and a dozen vendors who wanted to support education around the perimeter. Wifi was still a big deal, and the room was set up, so a new speaker kicked off every ninety minutes, but there were charging stations, and you could work at the same time - giving attendees the ability to stay in touch with business, but still pick up great ideas to market and promote their products/services.

One of my favorites programs over the years was a completely impromptu panel of experts in the evening after the day's schedule. We got together after dinner for anybody who had wanted to keep things going. We were there to answer questions about business, photography, life - it just didn't matter. That's Clay Blackmore, Tony Corbell, me and my honey, Sheila. We had at least 8-10 instructors join us. 

One of my favorite images of Sheila and me was captured that night and sent to me by good buddy, Brian Palmer. It proves a very special point - you don't have to have everybody looking at the camera all the time.

After the 2013 summer workshop, like so many educational events we decided it was time for a change. Workshops events like this are incredibly labor intensive and with so many different events to choose from it was time to move on, but not from the goal of education, continuing to build a business and support an industry I love dearly.

With help from good buddy, Scott Bourne, SCU became a reality and my life morphed into that of a blogger, podcaster, and writer. I wouldn't change a thing in my life since leaving Rangefinder/WPPI. The best part of the last nine years is the friendships that have come out of everyone's mutual love for the craft and the support we all give each other no matter what challenges life puts in our paths.

If the plan doesn't work, change the plan, but NEVER your goal.
Author Unknown

The year is 2008, and I was still living in California. Sheila was in Ohio but would come out a few times a year, and we'd play tourist. 

One of my favorite day trips was taking going to Catalina Island. On this trip, since it was just for the day, Molly the Wonder Dog came along, but they wouldn't allow her on the boat without a muzzle. 

We had just enough time to get her one and then make it to the boat for the island. She hated it, and while I understand the law in a confined area like this with so many people, Molly would have been fine. She's never growled at anybody let alone bite anyone. However, being the ham that I am, at one point I decided to join Molly.

I write the same thing with every Throwback Thursday post. Old photographs bring back memories, and I can remember just about every minute of that day. These are just snapshots, but put them together with the rest of the images from the day and they tell a story. 

Use your blog and Throwback Thursday as a marketing tool to remind your audience of the importance of pictures. Even better, share some of your older professional captured portraits and remind Mom how quickly the kids are growing up! Every day they change and then one day you wake up and they're out on their own. Yes, it really does seem to go that fast.

Remember, 98% of the decisions to hire a photographer in the portrait/social categories are made by women, usually Mom! 

​I shared this image a few years ago, but finding it in my archives recently makes it the perfect post for Throwback Thursday. Besides the fact that I had minimal gray hair back then, there are more significant points to appreciate.
 
The shot was taken around 1985 at a Polaroid Sales Meeting. It was the closing night's party for approximately 350 people who made up Polaroid's domestic sales team. I was given the assignment to put the party together.

We made it a safari party, and everybody had to come appropriately dressed. For props, we had a thousand rubber snakes and alligators all over the place. We had a twelve-foot screen playing the original Tarzan movies, even a tree house on scaffolding in the middle of the room for the DJ.

We needed one more great prop! My boss signed off on $5000 to bring in Zippy the Chimp for the evening. Zippy was a star from Letterman's show because he roller skated while taking pictures with a Polaroid One Step camera. So, in I walked with my celebrity date for the night, hand in hand with Zippy the Chimp.

But here's the first point this image brings back. For most companies, the days of spending $5000 on a "prop" for a party are long gone. In fact, Polaroid is long gone! Our industry is continually changing and along with it many of the giants who helped build the foundation for photography no longer have the presence they once did.

I remember a conversation with a good friend from Kodak many years ago about marketing budgets. There was one year, late 80's I think, where she had fifty-three million dollars in funding for special projects, books, education, etc. Imagine having that kind of money floating around in the industry today!

Those days are gone, but that doesn't change the power or the success of so many new companies, artists, and concepts today. Yeah, the big bucks days are gone, but as an artist, your glory days are right now. Done right, you can reach more people than a newspaper or magazine had ten years ago. You've also got the most number of creative tools in the almost two-hundred year history of photography. You've got creativity, reach and technology all at your fingertips.

Take a look at your images from just two years ago and look at what you're capturing/producing today. Your skill set's grown and if you're doing it right, so has your network. You may not have millions of dollars in your marketing budget, but you've got something better - you've got a network to draw from and an industry that's creating new opportunities for artists every day!
 
And, there's one more point this throwback image hits me with - it's the magic you guys bring to the world every day. It's all about the power of a photograph.

I look at this image and smile ear to ear. I can see the way we had the room decorated. I remember the two knuckleheads who came to the party with surfboards in surf attire saying, "We thought it was a surfin' safari theme!" I remember people I used to work with and name after name comes up as I wonder, "Where are they today?" I wonder if Zippy is still around - I have no idea how long chimps usually live. And then I wonder what happened to my black hair too.

So, the next time you think you're just a photographer - think again. You're a magician, capturing moments out of time and giving us a gift of an intangible moment we can hold onto forever, and that's what makes me so grateful to have you in my network!

If you're looking for a great walk down Memory Lane, find any old photographic magazine. This is another page from a 2002 issue of Rangefinder Magazine, and it brings back so many memories. 

The photographs are thanks to Kurt Gardner and were captured in 2001, seventeen years ago. Now, turn back the clock and think about the industry then. This post will, unfortunately, be a partial testimonial to what an old fart I am, but at the same time, it doesn't seem that long ago.

However, for all you "kids" out there...

• Digital was in its early days of getting a foothold. I remember getting a gift from good friends at Kodak of a DC220 1.0-megapixel camera a few years earlier. If I remember right the initial cost was around $1000.  It came in a kit with an 8mb compact flash card!
• Most of the artists we admire most today had their foundation in film. You had to know your gear and the craft. With film, there was no chimping! You sent the film to the lab and waited for the results.
• Many of us had more film in our freezers than we did food!
• Portra was a favorite for so many photographers. This is also where a lot of great friendships were founded with our good buddy, Terry Deglau. By 2002 Terry had left Kodak, but it was in his role as the manager/industry liaison in the portrait/social categories that so many photographers were introduced to Portra, the leader in print film at the time.

In the ad, there's a statement about "rich color and beautiful flesh tones." Well, here's another little piece of history for many of you. Getting accurate flesh tones was one of the most important challenges for the labs. Kodak was a leader in good color rendition and had several mannequins they used for setting the standard on flesh tones. The mannequins were nicknamed "Shirley." So the expression, when appropriate, was print to the Shirley when it came to a photographer sending film to the lab. 

When digital arrived on the scene, flesh tones were one of the most significant challenges when it came to printing. When Bambi Cantrell and I wrote The Art of Digital Wedding Photography published in 2006 by Amphoto, we refused the first shipment. It was part of a run of 10,000 books!

Bambi was shooting Canon at the time, and digital had finally taken a solid foothold in wedding photography. Well, the flesh tones were so bad and inconsistent, I still remember my call to the publisher, "This book is printed so badly that if Canon doesn't sue you, we will!"  The publisher went back to the printer and reprinted the book with excellent quality.

Throwback Thursday has become part of my weekly routine and while it's fun sharing my walks down Memory Lane with you, my readers, it's really like an energy drink for me! It's no secret how much I love this industry, and when I look in the rearview mirror once a week it leaves me in awe of not only today's technology but what the creative tools will be ten years from now!

​Happy Throwback Thursday!

In July 2002 I had the honor of becoming president of Rangefinder Publishing. This was the last magazine before a new team started to build a bigger and better publication, although Bill Hurter was always the driving force. (He's missed by so many of us today.) At the time my responsibilities included WPPI and Rangefinder Magazine. The magazine grew to a record-breaking 350+ pages over the next seven years.

Although my career on the professional side of the business started in 1987 at Hasselblad USA, joining RF/WPPI created some of my career's strongest friendships. Even this page sharing the work of the four winners on this 2002 recap from the magazine has four old friends, Joe Buissink, "Sklooty," Frank Cava and Joe Photo. 

Five years later Joe and I wrote a book together. I still catch up to him and "Sklooty" at various shows, and Joe Photo and I connected on Facebook not too long ago. Joe Photo and Michele Celentano co-hosted the WPPI awards program for several years. I didn't know Frank Cava as well as his brother Anthony, but I certainly knew his work and together their images were regular winners in WPPI competition.

And the fact that this scan is from the 2002 print competition is even more fun for me. I've written a lot about print comp - the judging event is one of the most valuable programs you can attend! For WPPI it's always before the trade show. The reason it's so helpful is all about your education. You've got multiple judges in each category and the opportunity to listen to their critique of every print. It's an incredible experience.

I had a lot of fun going through this old issue, and it's all thanks to Throwback Thursday. Take the time today and pick up a photographic magazine ten years or older. You'll be amazed at the changes in style, technology and even the ads are fun to review. It will also give you a better appreciation for all the creative tools you have today, and just how much the styles and technology have changed!

Happy Throwback Thursday!

The fun of Throwback Thursday is all in the memories old photographs create. They make us laugh, cry and take us on a continuous journey down Memory Lane.

I know I'm right on the edge of the poor taste envelope on this one. I'm sure there will be somebody out there who wants to criticize me for sharing this especially if they're offended by "the bird," adopted, feel this is a violation of copyright or think it's merely inappropriate since both my folks have passed away.

Well, my birthday is coming up this weekend, and this was sent to me thirty-five years ago, probably just about to the day. I was a manager at Polaroid, and responsible for Consumer Relations in the overseas subsidiaries. I was traveling out of the country every three weeks and typically gone for two. It was an incredible assignment.

Remember, there was no Internet back then. And, we were allowed one phone call home each week. There was nobody you could call if you needed help. You needed to know your job, play the politics when appropriate and pretty much have everything you needed in your head or briefcase.

Now here's why this is so much fun to share today... There are a number of you who met my folks over the years. They were great parents, and my Dad was always my best buddy. I can hear my mother saying something like, "Ralph, you can't send that," and then laughing hysterically as Dad literally cut and pasted his head and Mom's on the card.

The inside of the card just says, "You're Adopted!" But it's the message that Dad wrote that's mine to cherish. At least in my lifetime, it's the flashbacks to those moments of laughter and humor that give my folks a level of immortality.

Even though I've used this quote by author, Jodi Picoult several time previously it's still the very best quote about old photographs.

So, on this Throwback Thursday, have some fun looking through your own stash of memorabilia. You won't regret it and it'll help remind you just how incredible a career in imaging can be. No matter what your role in this industry, you help people capture and share memories. 

​Oh, and if anybody can top my Dad's sense of humor feel free to share your story. Maybe we'll start a new section of funny moments with our "rents."

I ran across the print on the right recently, and it's perfect for Throwback Thursday. Throwbacks aren't just about old photographs, but the stories they remind you about.

The year is 1991 and the photograph was captured by my great buddy, Terry Deglau. Terry was a part of some of the very best adventures in my career, and this was taken during one of them. That's Ansel Adams' Cadillac behind me and a Hasselblad on a tripod on the left.

With Hasselblad's support, I bought Ansel Adams' 1977 Cadillac from the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson. I was on their Board then and Ansel's widow, Virginia had donated the car to the Center to help raise money for their visiting scholar fund. 

As I was sitting in the Board meeting, I was thinking about Victor Hasselblad and Ansel Adams being close friends. So, I bought the car and then we sold it as a fund-raiser for Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS, another non-profit I was involved in at the time.

PPE, back then, had a sister show, Photo West, which was held at Mosconi Center in San Francisco. I picked up the car at Ansel's home in Carmel, just before the show, and had enough time to get a shot of the moment with me and Virginia Adams. That week we had it exhibited on the floor of the convention. Immediately after the show, Terry and I loaded up the car with two Lightware cases of Hasselblad gear and drove it to Yosemite. 

We spent three days driving through Yosemite and pulling out the Hasselblad gear at every opportunity. And, when we didn't have a camera in our hands we were playing Ansel's car horn. He had a horn that played the first few bars of 75-80 different songs. There's something unique about interrupting the solitude of Yosemite early in the morning with a few bars of Dixie!

Terry was then the senior manager at Kodak responsible for support to the industry and just about everything to do with print film. He brought enough film to feed our creativity for the entire trip. It was early in the season, so water levels in the park were nice and high. In fact, we stayed in a small motel next to the river, which roared with the winter runoff throughout the night.

The car was sold the following October at Photo East (now PPE) in New York, but I kept Ansel's keys and his original rear plate. In addition, ​I'm convinced I'm a better photographer because I put my tush in the same place Ansel put his, driving his car for a week.

As recently as a few years ago the Cadillac was still active and somehow wound up back in Yosemite. There's one ironic aspect to all of this. When I bought the car, in the glove compartment was a small record-book where Ansel kept track of the gas mileage. If you think about it, Ansel was one of the early environmentalists, and it makes me laugh that in his handwriting that '77 "boat" was only getting 9 miles to the gallon!

Throwback images are all about memories, and in a few minutes, I'm going to pick up the phone and call Terry. As with past calls we'll laugh about the good old days and what could easily be a movie, "Skip and Terry's Awesome Adventures!"

​Whether you post throwbacks on your website or just enjoy them for a trip down Memory Lane, don't let the day go by without one quick trip in the wayback machine!

​Happy Throwback Thursday everybody!

It's the perfect Throwback Thursday image. Before there was IUSA, we just referred to the convention as PPA National. That's my Dad on the left hanging with his old buddy, Don Blair. But this image, thanks to Sunny Sommers, brings back one of my favorite Don Blair stories. And, if I've shared it before in a post and don't remember, it's all due to aging...LOL 

​This was taken at one of the early PPA Charities events. It was an auction with a long list of collectibles that included sports memorabilia, photographic products, workshops, etc. You name it, if it had value we had it up for auction.

Well, I had an idea and got one of Don Blair's 14EEE shoes. I mounted it on a walnut trophy stand and had it engraved and into the auction pool it went. The night of the auction my Dad was sitting with Don and several of his "nieces" in the bar. Before the shoe came up for bidding, Don turned to my Dad (who was not a photographer) and said, "Pay attention Ralph - I'm a big guy in this industry, and my one shoe is going to bring some BIG bucks!"

The shoe came up for auction, and the bidding went nuts, finally hitting $1000 for the trophy. The woman who bought it was so excited to win the bid that she actually outbid her own bid twice! Don couldn't stop smiling and looked at my Dad and exclaimed, "My man - what did I tell you?"

The next day at the trade show, my Dad was helping Don in the booth. We were waiting for a shipment of the book we wrote together. Don's daughter, Kathy, was checking the receiving desk at the hotel all morning and finally came to the booth to get Don's credit card to pay for the shipment. She told my Dad the books were in and since Don was in the middle of teaching in the booth, she asked him to grab Don's wallet to get his credit card for the books.

NOT! She needed the credit card, but not for the books! She had to pay for the Don Blair trophy she had bought the night before and was determined to nail her Dad with the bill. So, Don did raise a lot of money for charity, but it was out of his own account! 

Dad never stopped letting Don know how "impressed" he was with his popularity! He'd kid Don every time they saw each other and "Big Daddy" would just look down sheepishly and shake his head!

And there you have it - throwback photographs bring back memories and along with them come the stories that make our friends and family immortal! Dad and Don have long since passed away, but that doesn't change the smile on my face right now!

So, whether you're sharing images on your blog as a marketing tool or taking a personal walk down Memory Lane - take the time to find a few old photographs today. It'll help remind you how unique the career path you chose really is and the important role photography plays in everyone's life. 

​Happy Throwback Thursday!

​"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"...
Charles Dickens

It always sounds so sappy when somebody talks about the people they work with as a "family." When I look back on this Throwback Thursday, nothing could be more accurate about the Rangefinder Publishing family.

Although the experience of working together was hardly as lofty as Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, we worked hard and played hard. And, in the process set some pretty amazing record-breakers for the magazine, once reaching 350+ pages in 2009, the WPPI convention hit attendance of 15,000+ one year along with the number of WPPI volunteers who became our extended family each year in Las Vegas.

Every year at Christmas time the "family" headed to a local restaurant in the area for an extended holiday luncheon. We did a "Secret Santa" exchange, laughed over the challenges of the past year and the upcoming convention, just a few months away and in general, just hung out for the afternoon. This particular year we headed over to a place on the water in Marina Del Rey.

The two images at the top are of Bill Hurter and Marlene Gourlay. Both have passed away in the last few years, but nothing changes the memories or the honor of having worked with both of them.

Gennie Kiuchi on the right is still on the masthead for Rangefinder Magazine as the Production Manager and is one of the most talented production designers I've ever worked with. In 2005 we were still putting the magazine together manually, page by page, moving ads and editorial around on two walls of magnets in the production department.

While I don't have pictures of everybody that year at the holiday party, it doesn't change the pure fun of looking back and being amazed at what this "Dream Team" accomplished year after year!

So, it's Throwback Thursday and whether you share your memories on your blog or not, take the time to wander through an old album, file or shoebox! As you look through those old photographs pay attention to the power each one has to send you on a voyage through time and as I've shared so many times in other posts...

It's a perfect Throwback Thursday share with a trip down Memory Lane and a BBQ challenge from 2008. Here's the scenario, and it's all thanks to one of my favorite children and family photographers, Carey Schumacher from San Diego.

I have no idea who started it, but somehow it was trash talk in a phone conversation about who could grill the best steak. Carey Schumacher had previously visited the Rangefinder Magazine office in Culver City a couple of times and photographed Molly and me. In fact, I shared her image and the stationery she sent me in a post a few years ago.

A few months later it was game on!  It was Skip and my Molly vs. Carey and her Molly! In a park somewhere in the San Diego area Carey had two grills set up, a picnic table for the judging panel and that's all it took. We were off and running.

I lost the challenge, but I still argue she stacked the deck by knowing all the judges. However, after years of therapy, I've gotten over the loss and managed to live a fulfilling life! LOL

Seriously, here's my point for this Throwback Thursday. There are memories you naturally capture with your camera and then there are those you work to create. Carey's friendship over the years means a lot, and even though we don't catch up that often, it's her effort ten years ago that puts a smile on my face every time I look at the images.

Carey's also responsible for a portrait of me that I've shared a few different times. But it's her comment on a past blog post that makes it even more special.

Here's a fun quality of Facebook. The image above was shared on Royce Chenore's page over a year ago. Recently somebody commented and the thread became active again, coming up on my page this morning.

Royce originally wrote:

This is Circa 1995... it was a publicity photo for the "PORTRAIT 2000" teleconference.... this was in the VERY early days of "electric imaging" now called digital retouch... the photographers submitted "selfies" on FILM of all formats brands and speeds....(selfie...another term that didn't exist) and ACI composited them into one image.... this was EXTREMELY INNOVATIVE AT THE TIME!! Feel free to share and tag others if you wish....

Well, I picked up the phone and called an old friend who I hadn't talk to in a lot of years, Ed Pierce, (front row, second from the end.)  What a kick it was to talk him about this event. Here's what so many of you don't know.

• ​This event actually led to the launch of PhotoVision, which many of you subscribed to over the years.
• There were four events in the series with the smallest being 58 viewing locations and the largest at 80+.
• While some of the locations were in theaters, over half were in hotel ballrooms with satellite trucks. Just the logistics alone, which included a few snow storms, was an incredible accomplishment.
• Ritz Camera had the studio for the production, but Ed Pierce had to help them rig it for the event.
• Each speaker was interviewed live during the event and then there was a 25-30 minute video of them working/teaching, and then back to the speaker live again.
• There was a full panel of operators standing by to field phone-in questions for the speakers - much like a telethon.
• The program was eight hours of live content for each event.

Now, take a minute and think about online education today. This is where it all started! There was no Creative Live or Lynda.com or for that matter ANY online programming. There were no webinars, even YouTube wouldn't be founded for almost another ten years!

But this is also another example of a fun aspect about Throwback Thursday. While in one respect I can't believe how old I am to have been around for this stuff - on the other hand, I couldn't be more proud to have been a very small part of it. Hasselblad was one of the sponsors and Tony Corbell, and I flew to Washington D.C. and were in the audience all day at the live event.

It's hard to imagine a more fun trip down Memory Lane when it comes to photography. To Royce for sharing over a year ago - thank you! And, to my old buddy Ed Pierce, who answered the phone just a few minutes ago, it really is time for you to write a book. You're the one who blazed this trail into video education and helped change so many lives in photography!

Happy Throwback Thursday everybody!

I've shared a few of these pages from the Graphi Studio "Day in the Life of WPPI" albums over the years, and here's one more. These are from 2007, the last year the show was at Bally's and Paris. It's also one of the few pages where I recognize everybody in the images!

From top left to right - Cherie Steinberg and Hedley Jones, Mike Colon and David Jay, David Beckstead and Gary Fong and Vicki and Jed Taufer. And they were all photographed by Catherine Hall, who was one of four photographers featured in that year's book together with Calvin Hayes, Jim Garner, and Victor Sizemore. 

In the second image, we've got Joe Photo and Marcus Bell in the front row. I think that's Brook Todd on one side and Parker Pfister and a hotel staff member in the middle - my guess is it was in the very early morning hours at the hotel. After all, nobody buffs the floors in any Vegas hotel during "rush hour!"  And Catherine, as always, captures the essence of enthusiasm! 

The whole idea behind the project was to document each convention as seen through the eyes of four different artists. The concept for the album was thanks to Maureen Neises at Graphi. The book became a milestone for me each year. It was the perfect way to document the event and capture so many different memories.

Throwback Thursday images are one of your very best marketing tools for your blog every week. Use throwbacks to help remind "Mom" that it's time for a new family portrait. Use your old photographs to talk about how fast time goes by and the importance of capturing those important memories. It's the perfect way to put those old photographs of yours to work planting the seeds for new business today.

And, if you're not blogging about them, take a walk down Memory Lane for your own enjoyment. There are few things to put a smile on your face faster than looking at old photographs!

​Happy Throwback Thursday!

Time to jump into the way-back machine and go back a whole lot of years. It's my senior year in high school and instead of the usual collection of votes for class characters, most likely to succeed, most athletic, etc. somebody came up with the idea of "Seniors Select Outstanding Classmates for Seats of Honor." While I was honored and appreciated the concept, holding an empty chair looks like we're on HSN trying to sell it, or years later, in a bar trying to steal it! 

At our class reunion last summer, I grabbed John Lucrezi, and with the help of Mike Demeter, we did our best to reenact the moment so long gone by in a grab shot at the bar! Mike is a professional photographer in Ohio and over the years he did several family portraits for my folks, and growing up in a small town our mothers even went to high school together. (I shared one of Mike's winter images in a post almost three years ago.)

The fun of Throwback Thursday is the trip you get to take just kicking back in a comfortable chair and strolling down Memory Lane. It's a fun thing to do. Keep an eye out for things that are "fun," because it's one of those words so often lost in the day-in-day-out pressures of business today.

Even if you don't share the moment in a blog post, find your old yearbook and enjoy the trip. And, if your senior year is at least twenty years behind you, think about how much the world has changed. Enjoy how much you've changed, and then do an inventory of your goals from then to now.

Happy Throwback Thursday!

Note: Sorry about the quality of the high school shot - it's a scan from an old yearbook.

When I first got certified a good friend told me that scuba diving wasn't a hobby, but a sickness! I didn't think about it until years later when looking back I started to count the dozens of trips and hundreds of dives I'd done. Diving becomes an obsession, but it's not just about being in the water, but time with great friends. Each trip was like a reunion filled with memories, laughs and fish stories that rival anything fishermen have to crow about.

The group above all hit Utila in Honduras to dive with whale sharks in 2008. It was an amazing trip - great friends, big fish and new memories daily. It was the epitome of everything you want a dive trip to be. Although not until we were leaving die we learn just how good it was.

Typical of dive resorts, everyone typically books their trips on a Saturday to Saturday schedule. That means everyone who arrives on Saturday, from all over the world, sees each other at departure a week later. Well, for all of us, we were the only group to see and get time with the whale sharks. Everyone else, although the diving was excellent, never spotted one of the big guys!

You get to meet each other as your praying for all your bags to arrive. There's nothing worse than losing a bag with your gear and having to delay a great trip because you're waiting for the airlines to figure out what happened. Just the joy of seeing your gear in a pile on the runway is an adrenaline rush!

And for those of you non-divers who think the world of scuba is filled with luxury hotels, beautiful yachts and upscale accommodations think again! But the more rustic the "resort," the more laughs and memories! Just the bathroom in our room was enough of a memory-maker to contribute to the stories of the trip!

One of the benefits of booking a group trip like this is our strength in numbers. On every dive we "owned" the boat which gave the captain the flexibility to do whatever we wanted, which included a couple of night dives along with working hard to spot the critters we'd come most to see, the whale sharks.

The other day while looking through a backup drive from my old computer I found all of these images. The whale shark was captured by one of the other divers, and while it won't win any awards, it won hands down in memories.

The little guy below was on a night dive. I was shooting with an inexpensive FUJI point and shoot in a small underwater housing. If you're not aware of what happens on a night dive - it's pretty amazing. You see virtually no colors in any of the coral, sponges and plant life during daylight, but bring in any artificial light like the flash on your camera or an underwater flashlight and the world lights up with color. There's no manipulation in the color of the coral this spotted eel was hiding under.

I know I shared this in a post years ago, but I don't remember when or where...and that might be part of the fun of Throwback Thursdays. Some memories are too good not to go back to more than once! I also forgot about the shot of "Two-Gun Tony Corbell," and me as a wrangler walked us into position for a photo opportunity.

We were doing a Hasselblad sales meeting at the Westward Look Hotel in Tucson. I'm guessing the year is sometime early 90's. I wanted an authentic looking period shot of the old west with all of us. I'm laughing about how serious I took the group portrait. I remember being upset you could see Mike Bowen's Nikes, but never thought twice about my Porsche Carrera sunglasses! 

There's also a fun sidebar. This was the Hasselblad team, but the photographer who we hired captured the image with his Bronica gear. Plus, forty years later at a high school reunion, I found out I went to high school with him! He just didn't connect it at the time, which goes back to three years in high school where I was "Steve." (I got tired of all the Skippy Peanut Butter jokes, but down deep I've never been a Steve.) He just didn't know he knew Skip.

Well, it's Throwback Thursday, and you need to have some fun with the opportunity to dig out and share a few old images. And, if you don't share them on your blog to remind clients how fast their kids are growing, at least find a few for your own enjoyment.

​Happy Throwback Thursday!

"Looking at old photographs brings back memories and makes us feel nostalgic: it is like a time machine bringing us to the time and place where we can see and feel everything in details."
Chermed

 For ten years, starting around '92, there was a group of us from the photographic industry who went into Yellowstone every winter. While I've written about the trips in earlier Throwback posts, I recently found a few images looking through some older albums. (Apologies for the quality of the scans, but the images weren't stored very well, and I have yet to find the negatives.)

The trips started with just four of us and grew to probably twenty-five at their peak. It's an experience only a minority of the people in the world have the privilege to see and appreciate. It was also at a time before the government got involved, and snowmobiles were allowed in the park, pretty much without restrictions. 

The two scenery shots were actually outside the park on our way up Two Top Mountain. At just over 8000 feet, the snow builds up around the trees and bushes and is then molded by the wind and cold. Mother Nature creates a surreal landscape of imaginary critters, including dragons. It's an endless display of creativity.  

However, as beautiful as it was, I've never experienced cold like that. These images are all back in the film days and shot with a Hasselblad 503CX, my favorite camera back then.  Often the biggest challenge of any trip was keeping the camera warm and in good shape. Most of us used to zip it up inside our jump suits. 

Yellowstone Park has changed a lot in the last twenty years. For example, last week I was talking with Daniel Cox, a Panasonic Luminary, amazing outdoor wildlife photographer and resident of Bozeman. At the time we were going into the park we always saw a lot of elk and some really big herds. Well, Yellowstone brought in wolves to "naturally" reduce the size of the herds. Today, it's hard to find the elk. The wolves have done more than what was needed and the elk stay more secluded.
 
Okay, there's my contribution to Throwback Thursday and my own trip down memory lane. Take the time, even if you're not sharing the images on Facebook or in a blog post, and have some fun looking through a box of old photographs or files you haven't seen in awhile. 

We're all part of an amazing industry, but you can't appreciate the value and trust your clients have in you without appreciating your own priceless moments.