All of us having rocky ups and downs
whether it be covid, murder hornets, or issues with employment, rescheduling and canceling and life in general…
This year has not been kind,
but even before the year started
we were beginning to realize we needed things to change.
We being society and we being us in B+B.
So we asked ourselves,
if the world is really ending,
what could we do to die happy?
For me (Ben) I wanted to get more creative with cinematography,
to gain even more experience with different programs,
and to get my voice out more by taking over – hence the take over Social Media.
Most importantly, to get back to why I wanted to do cinematography and even photography,
to document and capture our own memories.
We get to live this amazing life, why should we forget it?
For Becca, she wanted to well...
just be the artist she has been slowly letting out,
create memories and art,
step back from the verbal to artistic,
and realize the art we had envisioned for B+B was never meant to blend into feeds but was meant to consume walls and minds.
From the sunset chasing that got us started with color gradients,
the burning reds and yellows leaving skin warmed before vivid teal to blue hour interrupting twilight….
straight to our photos and incorporate it into cinemas as well.
She knew before 2020 even came knocking, she wanted to get back to those roots.
How did we lose our way to begin with?
Well to keep from making this blog post any longer...
2017-Mid 2018: We got lost in the should.
How we should edit to market, to get likes and become well known.
*enter editing crisis and identity*
How we should expect quick results from this.
*enter really bad gimmicky webinars*
How we should talk to people, to get clients.
*enter feeling slimy, gross, in need of several showers.*
How we should post and live, to attract clients.
*enter in the "but it is windy and snowy out what are we supposed todo?"*
*ENTER INTO LOST, CONFUSION AND THE ULTIMATE QUESTION OVER...
"WHAT ARE WE DOING AGAIN, WHAT IS ALL THIS FOR?
WHAT IS THIS THE BIGGER PICTURE?
WHAT IS THE POINT?!"*
2018-2019: We wanted to do more than just take photos and be known as photographers + cinematographer...
We wanted to make art.
How could we have a motto as “To be extraordinary is to be incomparable” and not well you know, live up to it?!
So we started asking each beaming and beloved client before they signed and when they signed,
“are you okay with us transforming your memories into art?”
Thankful that each of them eagerly said yes.
Seriously HUGE thank you to each of you who decided to be excited about art!
As well as encourage, trust, and be amazing.
Not only your belief and enjoyment of art,
but as well as after tech issues of fall 2019,
we can say we are incomparable in perseverance,
that’s s for sure and believe in ourselves even more.
So you guys don't have to worry Tinkerbell will die.
So thanks for being amazing.
Hearing how you enjoyed the art,
and understood the tech issues that kept many of you waiting for months...
Our hearts beat quite joyous over our beaming and beloved bees of clients!
But that did only mean, it was only the beginning.
Beginning to be incomparably extraordinary, and authentic.
With rough starts and beginnings all we can do is learn from past mistakes and teachings and grow from them and come back more confident, inspired, and more creative than before.
Our biggest mistake, is forgetting why we got started.
Been a few new beginnings as we add to our intellect, and even more fits of laughter (and tears too, if we are being 100% transparent) from being humbled.
Now enter 2020.
Currently our email is has not been touched since late April or May.
All we know, we knew we were done delivering, and it was time to start the personal year.
As you can see, posting doesn’t happen as often as it should.
Nor has blogging.
Or Youtubing.
But what you do see is better content, that if we are in your feed or sharing blogs....it’s not just fluff.
And there is a lot more from where that is coming from.
But first, it is also time we remember that we are our own bosses,
for a reason, not some algorithm.
That yes, it is good to post during high traffic times,
but it is even better to post when we feel like it
when we have good content to share.
But what is the point, right?
What is the point to this long, blah blog post?
For that we have to go back to the beginning.
Back to a week after we eloped.
Yup.
2017, babbbbbyyyyy.
(We know, we already went there. But we went to a month after this week.)
They say if you have a passion for something, let it be the base of your life and let it make your life bloom.
Paraphrasing but you get the picture.
If you have passion, it will make your life better.
Well, hi! Ben here,
I had watched how my wife, my lovely and courageous mate for my heart, and her passion just seemed to radiate as well as light up a room.
Seriously, it is a force.
Watching it just flow from her,
how she can just own a room without trying?
How hard can it be?
So.
B+B, it was my idea, it was my thought.
I wanted us to come together as a team Becca+Ben to create, meet, and follow a the start of Becca's dream, growing my own– making something greater than us, that was not just duplicating ourselves into smaller versions (having kids)
Granted in 2016,
for me I just wanted to go with her on her photo shoots and help out.
Then I wanted to learn from her and become a photographer myself.
After feeling that out I brought up videography, it was essentially what I had done growing up, watching and talking about cinematography.
Why not right?
It can’t be hard, I have help from my boss of a wife!
2017 Note to Ben, from 2020 Ben:
Nah brah, step back.
Look at what is all in being a partner of a company:
-the marketing (the hours + confusion),
-the new editing softwares (C O N F U S I O N and humility),
-the constantly changing technical issues and features
-and much more.
I was in over my head, did I really want this all this time?
I knew for certain that she was who I wanted to do it with
(get your mind out of the gutter, come on, I meant a business, you know what, nevermind)...
but all that other stuff it’s going to take a lot of work!
So do I want this?
Thing is...
I do want this.
All of this.
The time spent cursing at screens.
The time spent being flustered at not being seen.
The time out with my wife being surrounded by all the love.
I want this,
I want to capture the love that people have for one another,
I want to see that the world might be in a dark place,
but it is not killing love.
Love is still thriving, illuminating the dark.
Love is winning.
It is persevering.
I want this.
I want to show the world how you can do anything if you put your mind to it.
I want to have a powerful passion, that consumes and makes life worth remembering.
That makes me thankful for both my day job, but also for following a dream come true.
There are several other things too:
-traveling,
-getting out in nature,
-having memories set in moving art that just seems right.
I wanted, want, and will want this.
(even if it is not as easy as my wife made it look. Still makes it look while I'm here.)
Becca, your turn, ya vibrant wallflower of a boss you.
Aye, it's me-aaahh, Beccaaaabee.
LET ME STRESS:
I thought Ben was nuts, off his rocker, and looking to get out of a marriage,
when he first proposed B+B, back in 2017.
I never thought I wanted a partner, let alone a live-in business partner.
I was getting used to the fact, that not only did I get married to an amazing soul
BUT
I actually enjoyed it.
Here comes Ben, adding a whole new level to process.
He was determined that my passion, was enough to stumble into this venture together.
Yup, I naturally popped off with, "You crazy, you can't possibly want this."
When he asked why not....
I popped off again.
Long hours, seriously it is not just editing and taking photos, and posting.
It''s forming a brand, that you want to work long hours for
AS WELL AS
be known for.
It is learning marketing.
It is staying up to date on knowledge (so research + trial/failure).
It is a job of 5 in 1 title.
Yet he was steadfast.
Yet I hid it all, for over a month.
Giving him time to pull a just kidding.
Spoiler Alert:
HE DIDN'T.
I still ask him regularly if he wants this.
Especially when tech issues are transpiring between us, and programs are not working, and nothing is "easy".
Passion wears thin.
Perseverance, Stubbornness, Strength
You need all 3 of these + Passion.
You need a why.
Ben's why: working with wife and making art.
Mine? I don't know, obsession?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my time spent working with Ben.
It's something I never thought I would enjoy.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy making art.
It's something that I have enjoyed from a young age.
Obsession is a poor word choice, more like compulsion.
There is an artist headspace I enter when either capturing or working on transforming memories into pieces of art.
Like the world is silenced.
I have a bubble around me.
Undisturbed.
And when done, it is a POP.
And noise of the world pops me right back into the current of life.
Yet that peace, that tranquility?
That bubble?
There is something oddly, calling about it.
That is my why.
That is where my power lies.
Not in the camera, not in the editing.
But in the bubble of both, in the bubble of creating.
During a year like 2020, that bubble is a happy, safe space.
And very much needed.
Because without that bubble, without that space to just be...
we are forced to fill out this unwanted bingo card to face the questions plaguing us.
If we call Bingo, do we win?
Or do we lose because the world is ending?
If we do not call bingo, and lose... do we win?
Because you know, we are alive?
Or is this when the murder hornets come back.
Is this when 2020, goes "ROUND 2" and does not end?
Is this when the waters get too raging and we are tempted to just give up?
Or is this when evolution upgrades us to XMEN, and we bloom into being unstoppable? Or are we just being a-jaxed around?
Is this when love wins?
Is this when it outshines the darkness?
Ironically the world might be on the verge of ending,
but it might also be on the tip of transforming.
In transforming, we learn where we all went wrong.
And oddly, maybe a year like 2020 is needed to humble, remind, and make us gracious for the good times ( you know the times of no masks and hugs).
But seriously, in times of duress do we not all crave hope, love, acceptance, and think of solutions?
Due to preplanning that 2020 would be a reset year, we had vowed to let the year show us what we would want.
And honestly, we thought we knew prior to, and it would just solidify.
Well it has and then some.
We knew we wanted to prioritize elopements, and we thought that would be it.
But then the more cool strangers we kept bumping into, and the more excursions in love, we kept hearing...
the more we wanted more than just a brief few months of planning for a special, perfectly tailored to your Lover's Tale of a day filled with adventures and love.
We wanted not just elopements, but all couples.
Freshly in love, and no clue how long it will last but enamoured and soughting after one another.
The blinging engaged, and eyes filled of wonder of what the future adventure holds.
The wandering couple ready to tie two fates together, and begin the adventuring of wandering through life together.
Then lastly, the couple honoring the years that made memories together, and all the days - the good and the bad- spent together exploring life together.
Wanting, needing, their love not only captured and documented, but transformed into art meant to be enlarged hanging on the wall; an artwork, meant to make you not only stop and stare, but to feel not just the moment, but pieces of all the moments that took away your breath, and gave you the exhilarating feeling of falling in love...
again.
and again...
and
again.
That's the thing about transforming, we mistake it for death.
And in a way, it is a death in what we know, what we think we wanted, and yet...
Just like Autumn, Fall, Pumpkin Spice Season–
as the leaves go from vibrant + glowing green, rustling strongly as the wind blows....
to burnt amber colors before they bristle the ground each shake of the wind, leaving the tree bare...
leaving us thinking,
"Oh no, it is the end... of summer", yet look at how Autumn brings transformation...
Ends what we know we wanted, yet gives us new perspective, new things to look forward to...
even if it is grabbing a pumpkin spice latte and pouncing onto a pile of leaves.
Unless you live in Colorado, and you are building snowmen instead.
Regardless of how 2020 ends, unless we all wind up dead,
we're planning on relaunching B+B in March 2021,
or well whenever everything is ready,
and we bloody well feel like it.
That is anothing thing we were not expecting,
not hustling every single day, all day, every minute,
we thought we would get bored or tired of it.
Spoiler Alert: We did not hate it, in fact we enjoyed the slower pace.
We liked not feeling like we were on the world's timeline for success.
But rather our own,
We no longer felt comparison stealing our joy.
Rather our joy telling comparison to take a bloody F**** hike.
Wait why are we sensoring?
This is our website.
Our voice.
So World Timeline, World Definition of Success, World definition of Perfect life,
take a bloody fucking hike buddy.
IF 2020 doesn't kill us all,
we deserve our own timelines, dreams without a happily ever after + fade to black, but rather each day be meaningful and powerfully consuming in wonder.
Where each day feels a star, creating a galaxy of amazement, so that we never forget that we are all embarked on great journeys that are meant to:
-teach
-Fill
- Give
That is why in 2021, whenever we relaunch, the only expectation with B+B we will have is...
Capturing: real, messy, consuming, enthralling, mystical, and wonderful Love.
Is that a too tall of a tale?
We got a question for you then...or a few!
How many "Happily Ever Afters" did you want more from?
When did you start believing that life had to be boring unless you were doing something labeled "extraordinary"?
When did you forget, you were incomparable art, and love was supposed to be a muse.
Aloha Lovers🌺
Thanks for reading!
Please drop a comment filled with your thoughts over this blog.
Please continue reading all the Bold + Bewildering blogs from the buzzing bees.
But most importantly, thanks stopping into this beehive for a bit.
We can't wait to adventure with you, so before you buzz away, tell us your lover's tale- go on give us a hallmark moment with reality.
Aloha🌺
P.S.:
But really are we all winning or losing bingo?
What is the grand prize? Life?
Who is calling the next number of unfortunate events?
B+B
Ben + Becca
Vintage Cinematography + Artistic Photography =
CO Wandering Elopement Visual Artistry Team
Thank you, your owl has brought your letter to our email, and we are currently combing through a few thousands of messages, so we will send an owl back as soon as possible! Go Follow @famofbandb on IG tho, bonus house points if you find a cute dog on there!
