It is our 6 year wedding anniversary this weekend and it felt like the right time to start fresh on this new blog. Our very first post on our original blog was the story of our engagement so this felt right.
Let’s have some story time to catch you up.
So why a new blog? First, the domain for our original blog wasn’t meant to be our professional blog. Our original intention for it was for our photography work traveling but then things just unraveled differently. Second, Our work has grown a lot over the past 6 years and we’ve been through a lot so a fresh start feels right. Our work is much more consistent now and since we are essentially starting over, why not clean the slate?
Ryan and I started this business in 2008 when we got married and we started it out of a mutual love for each other, photography, people and creating things. Over the years, we have hit some rough patches. I got quite sick, Ryan struggled with how to deal with his ADD and side effects from medication, we moved way too many times and have just been searching for the right path to take in life.
Along the way, we took other jobs, almost lost each other and learned a lot about how we didn’t want to live our lives. That journey gave us exactly what we needed in deciding on a path. It’s funny how you sometimes have to know what you don’t want to do in order to figure out what you do want to do.
We simply want to go back to doing something that we love, in a way that we love and the rest will sort itself out. When it becomes more about business and money and less about heart and photography it’s no longer enjoyable and the work loses it’s spark. There is a way to balance it all and it starts by following my gut and doing what feels right.
Simply put, if our goal is to create authentic, beautiful photos then we believe very strongly that we need to live an authentic, beautiful life because our life feeds into our work. There is a great amount of trust between client and photographer necessary to create beautiful work and by being relentlessly authentic, it creates space to be comfortable. Ryan and I have always been the type of people that move through the world differently and by committing to making that work for us is the new path we will be taking.
For those of you wondering where we live now since we’ve moved 9 times in 6 years...we live in Muskegon Michigan. We are currently looking for a house to buy around here and will be settling down and hopefully having some baby Gauper’s in the next few years. Ryan’s figured out how to naturally deal with his ADD, I’ve figured out all the foods that make me sick and crazy and we are excited about moving forward in a new, much more simple life together. All we really need is each other, a house and many, many cats. Sometimes simple really is the best way.
So I hope you enjoy taking this new, brighter journey with us.
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NOTE: if your looking for any work we have done from 2008-2013, our original blog is still up and will remain live. It is at www.mudeyes.com I will be posting some of my very favorite past work on this blog along the way as well.
Also, I realize how pathetic it is to have a photo of us on here that is taken with our iphone haha! We just were not able to have our photos taken last year because of a bajillion dollars of dental work that came out of nowhere. So an iphone photo is better than nothing...but we will be having professional photos taken this year for sure. :)