When I put together a presentation I often pause and smile when I need to add a photo. Sure, I occasionally use a photo from online, but my favorite photos to use are my own. Now I have another reason to tap into my photos; Zoom & Teams video backgrounds. In those moments I’m thankful for my personal stock photos.

Over the past couple of days I’ve had to go to my personal well a handful of times for various reasons. Each time I need to find a photo I end up with a huge smile on my face. By the time I put the pic into the presentation I am usually smiling even bigger.

When I have the first spark of inspiration of what I want the photo to represent my mind races across all the photos I’ve taken. I basically flip through my mental rolodex to find a few potential pics. As I’m doing this I inevitably spend time looking at other old pics and am flooded with awesome memories.

By the time I find the pic there’s usually a 50% chance that it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. When that happens I roll through all those memories again to see what I can find. In doing so I sometimes have to change the idea of the photo a bit. Sometimes I need to take a deeper look at other pictures to see which ones may have the right details that I missed the first time. Regardless, I end up focusing more on the picture and see it in a new way. Once I finally find the right one I’ve probably looked very closely at a minimum of half a dozen others.

When I go back to my personal stock photos I have such a great time rekindling memories of great times, beautiful scenery, and epic trips. Having an excuse to cruise back through those old photos is something I’ll forever be grateful for!

Thanks!!!