Recharging Your Batteries - A 2009 Video

One of the fun things about Facebook is the way we share images.

Turning back the clock to 2009, "Skip's Summer School" was the second major project I took on after starting my own company. The first was three weeks of doing portfolio reviews at Hallmark Institute, which was an incredible experience. However, that was a one-time project, and afterwards it was time to get things going with the core of my new business.

I wrote a little about it this past Sunday, but finding this video in my Facebook archives was a complete surprise.  It was produced by Ron Dawson, an incredibly talented artist, and filmmaker. He was a presenter at that first Skip's Summer School, and this is a perfect example of what I love about Throwback Thursday.

​While the video is posted on Facebook and certainly can be shared, I still called Ron to make sure he was okay with it. I haven't talked to him in years, and he gave me the okay through an IM and we'll hopefully catch up on the phone one day soon. Throwbacks bring back both memories and old friends.

​The second component making this fun is sharing my message in the video. Nothing's changed in the importance of knowing when you're headed to burnout and the importance of recharging your batteries! After all, you do it for your gear before every event you photograph. You're never without the power you need to get the shot in your camera, but so often we forget about our hearts!

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And then there's the third ingredient...memories. Molly the Wonder Dog loved chasing tennis balls and her reputation for catching them was legendary. She was only four years old when this video was made, and she chased them right up to the day before she died. That's over thirteen years of chasing, four chukits, and probably 30 cans of balls until a friend at a tennis club brought me a garbage bag full of balls that had lost their bounce!

"I love those random memories that make me smile, no matter what's going in my life right now."
Unknown Author

Take the time today to wander through your archives and appreciate what you find when you look in the rearview mirror. While it's important to keep looking forward, there's nothing wrong with a smile and a look backwards now and then.

Click to find out more about Ron Dawson