Aaron and Bri know how to laugh. They know what makes each other crack, and openly do so. They also know what it means to be best friends, and celebrate life together. We love seeing relationships that feed off of each other’s strengths. Aaron knows how to crack a good joke, and Bri knows how sneak up behind and get people laughing. When they are together, they know how to please a crowd, and time spent with them is always filled with smiles and excitement. The wedding was in Georgia, in order to be close to Aaron’s family and friends, and it was beautiful to see the way they gathered together. Their wedding was a joyous occasion and we are grateful to have been a part of it.

Quietly listening to stories that have been forged through years of hope, joy, pain and experience has become a dear interest of ours. It’s where we find our passion in what we do as photographers. Understanding the beauty and whimsy in each story we get to tell creates a love for it. It’s encouraging to know where people come from, to know that life is being lived everywhere we go.

We want to understand life so badly. We want to know hearts and minds, how they work, how they love, how they hope, how they fear. But it’s exciting to know that the pursuit of life never ends. There is always more to understand about the way a person works, and it goes beyond the stretches of text books explaining the physical functions of our bodies. Our hearts and minds cannot grasp the entirety of the human heart, and that’s why understanding people is a lot of hard work. It takes effort and pursuit and love.

Let’s never stop fighting to understand.

I enjoy that exploration feels more like home than something foreign. Opening up the doors to our heart and mind helps to free up all the “routine”. Exploration challenges us to push harder, walk farther, endure longer. I so often get stuck in the routine of sitting in front of a screen for days in a row, and it gets boring. It causes me to be stuck in place. But when I get out to adventure and explore, it draws me closer to myself. My mind fills with inspiration and the freedom to do what I feel, and do what I love.

Being resolved to position ones self as an explorer takes a stagnant story and fills it with breath. Whether I’m exploring a city, forest, the people around me, my art, or my heart, it’s about making an active choice to move through the doors in front of me and grow.

I’ve met a lot of people that don’t know how to breath. And I find that majority of my life and time, I spend holding my breath. We stuff ourselves up into these worlds that we have to go somewhere or be somebody and there are so many expectations that we hold our heads high and never mess up.

Breathe.
In. Out.

And when it’s out, let it stay out. You are you. We are all going to mess up at one point or another, we are all going to let down our walls and fight through our deepest fears. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to laugh. When someone asks, “how are you?” tell them where your heart is. When someone asks, “how did you sleep?” tell them you had nightmares, not that you slept okay. Honesty. It’s the air. I keep saying it but it’s what keeps us breathing, hoping, cherishing one another. The honesty that you carry, that you give, is what is going to free you. No chains to the lies, no chains to the “have-to-be’s”. Don’t hold your breath waiting for another person’s approval. Know who you are and just be.

Don’t forget to breathe.

I never want to forget to play. I want to remember running straight into the freezing ocean, rumpus-ing through the trees of Big Sur, the first steps on the Santa Monica Pier after 22 hours of driving. I want to hold tight the memories of whimsy, sleeping under stars with the ocean’s music lulling me to sleep. The refreshing air of play is what gives me oxygen.
When we are able to be carefree and just let go, we are able to celebrate our friendships. It’s the hard times that build community stronger and tighter, and the play that allows us to celebrate it.

Let’s never stop playing.

Last year we took a tiny dream, and turned it into a story. Our “Really Big Adventure” trip took us by the heart and captured exactly what we want to be doing- dreaming. We surrounded ourselves by people and creatives we love and collaborated to make our dream of a gallery become true.
It’s somewhat ironic that the product of our passions came at the same time we were overcoming one of the hardest things we’ve been through in our personal lives. But we knew the gallery couldn’t be cut, and when it was finished, we experienced peace.
Dreams are easy. Making dreams into reality is hard. Creating a story is not all unicorns and pixies. Have you ever tried writing a book? Only a few special people are cut out for the work it takes to push through. I believe there are so many times when you would want to give up- coming up with a captivating story, fighting through the writer’s block, going through the editing process, even trying to get published is a challenge in itself. But man, can you imagine the satisfaction an author feels once their book hits the shelves?

Chris and I not only hit the shelves. We wrote a best-seller.
Throughout this next week, we are looking forward to sharing some of the images that were featured in the gallery, along with other ideas about pursuing dreams.

Life gets busy. Time gets too long in all the wrong places. Excuses are exceptionally easy to come up with.
We all have dreams, and we all push them away. We want to try and embrace our dreams, and love people really well. We want to live our dreams just for ourselves. We are not seeking approval, or trying to prove ourselves as enough. Our dreams are our own and people cannot take them from us.

Chris and I are learning. We are learning to push through the writer’s block, so to speak. Sometimes we allow the work of others to intimidate us rather than inspire us. Sometimes we have to work late nights in order to make deadlines. And sometimes it’s really discouraging to be a photographer in a world full of easily accessible cameras and photoshop filters. But instead of allowing that to push us down, we are pushing harder to let it resonate and inspire who we are.
We are learning the creative ebb and flow that is always going to be there.

Let’s keep writing best-sellers.

I’ve found that sometimes even inside of a creative pursuit, it’s easy to get stuck inside of a routine. I can quickly find myself getting comfortable once again with the world around me, letting this adventure become a job. The creative pursuit is about constantly changing and growing and molding. Learning, forgetting everything, and then relearning. It’s chasing after ideas and seeing where they lead you. It’s restraining yourself from being the thing that prevents opportunities from unfolding.

This is a scary thing that we are exploring. This creative pursuit is about constantly being willing to leap and then quickly leap again. I tend to stop and recover each time I leap. I think we all do that naturally. Being a people whose flesh desires security and safety, it’s difficult to stretch and bend in the opposite direction.

Melodie and I are grateful to have wedding season back once again. It forces us into a perspective of constantly viewing the world differently with each couple we are blessed to be with. This month, we began this season beautifully in Atlanta. Warm evenings, sitting on docks and meeting new friends. This is our life as photographers.

Art is war. You can’t simply wait around for the inspiration to come because it won’t. You have to fight courageously for what it is you believe in. You have to ask intentional questions, and understand that it isn’t something that is free. But man, is it worth every penny, every minute, every tear, every smile. Art and inspiration come from the deep places of one’s heart that is not easily accessed.
But that depth of heart is exactly why we fight.

This guy knows what it means to open up doors that let inspiration rush in. He understands it in a way I’m sure Chris and I don’t even understand yet. He is intentional in the music that he makes, and it is evident. He knows how to dream and how to inspire others to dream. The desire to encourage, inspire, and bring together open hearts is something that resonates deep within Chris and I as well. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to connect with another like minded soul. Collaboration with Dillon was a learning process in itself and we couldn’t help but leave wanting to dream more and more and more.

Listen to his music magic here.

I remember this time as a little kid when a few friends and I were sitting at the base of the playground swing set. We were making these lists. Lists of all the things we would do one day. Growing to be ten feet tall, becoming king of another planet, and swimming across the ocean. Our eyes must have lit up as we yelled and laughed and imagined. We saw all the possibilities and nobody could have convinced us that we were not innately capable of pursuing anything.

I believe that we were designed to be dreamers. At our core when you strip away all the pain we’ve been through, I don’t see a love for safety, security, power and money. I see dreamers that realize they are a small piece in a much bigger story. I see passionate people that have just learned to say no to the thing that is pressing up against their chest.

Yes, humanity doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, the way it was designed to. There is pain and absurdity and fear. There are endless amounts of logical explanations as to why we should play it safe. That is what makes this crazy pursuit so vulnerable and beautiful though. Melodie and I want our life as photographers to be one that is constantly walking through doors that we are afraid of. Letting our focus be on loving people and trusting something other then ourselves. When we are able to jump off cliffs without knowing what will happen next, the fruit that comes from saying yes is that much more stunning.

So let’s do it once more. Let’s sit around with the people we love. Laugh and smile and open up that fragile broken shell that we put our dreams into. Pull out the ideas and hopes and share them with everyone. Let us let go of the fears and find that courage once more. Take the leap, apply to Juilliard, Quit your job and drive to Napa to work at a winery, Move to New York and show other artists your portfolio, Send a letter to that person you always wanted to work with, Do what you really want to be doing in the place you already are, Turn down the promotion to focus on creating your own business, Record an album and sell it even though you don’t think you’re good enough.
Let’s take this gift of living out our story and make it count.

I feel infinitely blessed by the people that surround me. Their hearts, their talent, drive, and focus. I see them firmly press into the ground, pounding out the shape of their heart on the earth. I watch as they scream and whisper, sing and dance, pour love out and let love pour in. I have a deep joy getting to see these incredible friends reach out far beyond what is reasonable and not be controlled or limited by fears.
Thank you for living humbly, knowing who you are and where you can make a difference.

Thank you all for fighting to spread the light that has been placed upon your life.

This is what it looks like to have a love that is just about to be stretched over hundreds of miles. This is what intentionality looks like. This is what embracing every moment looks like. This is what knowing someone looks like.

This is what it looks like to take chances.