BACK TO HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Going back to humble beginnings is something I always tend to do in order to keep me grounded as it can be sometimes easy to forget how far we’ve come. I don’t think I’ve ever shared the full story in one blog post as to how we came about doing what it is we do today. So I’ll use this as an opportunity to take you down memory lane.

It all started in late summer of 2012 when I had just experienced a really trying time. I was unemployed, recently single and struggling financially. That was when I decided to move down to Manchester from Birmingham to squat with a friend. Soon after, in my quest for fulfilment, I came across the law of attraction and figured I had nothing to lose but everything to gain if it worked by applying it into my life.

It didn’t take long for me to make a gratitude list followed by a list of things I hoped to achieve in the coming months. One of which was finding a partner and another getting a full time job. I made sure to accompany my desires with actions. I soon joined a dating website and a couple of weeks later, I started chatting to Craig. We exchanged numbers and spoke everyday until we decided to meet a week later. After our first date, we would end up meeting everyday for coffee after he finished work.

A month later we got a new apartment and moved in together. A couple of months passed and he proposed and I said yes! Three months after being engaged we got married. Nearly seven years since our first date, here we are. But not so fast as it took a lot to get to this point.

As an accountant, I became in charge of the household finances even though I was unemployed at the time. I spent my days binge watching all the reality tv shows I could get my hands on. You could say wasting away my days as I now detest reality tv shows and have no patience for them, lol. It wasn’t all that bad though as I stumbled across a show called Fashion Bloggers which showed some amazing women expressing themselves creatively. I decided I was going to teach myself photography. So rather than pay the rent which was almost due, I used the money to buy a camera unbeknownst to Craig. That is until the landlord started to chase him for payment and he checked in with me to see if it had been paid and I said “I bought a camera instead”. He actually took it really well as he responded with the least amount of bother saying “fuck it! we’ve got a new camera!”. And that my friends marked the beginning of our creative journey.

We eventually paid off the rent. And since I was responsible for deciding to purchase the camera, I thought it was only fair to put it to good use. I set about teaching myself photography by watching YouTube videos and practicing every chance I got.

A couple of months after buying the camera, I gained full time employment as a financial accountant in a bank but it didn’t stop me from improving my photography skills. I remember staying up as late as 2am on a work night learning and applying photoshop techniques. I would go into work and all I could think about was going home to learn something new. I dedicated every spare time I had to it as it was and still remains my passion. Luckily for me, Craig came around to it and he joined me in learning too.

Three years into my full time role, I decided it was time to give my passion a chance. Focusing on it alone to see where it would lead me. As quickly as I started it, it didn’t take long for me to realise that I’d need Craig to join me in order to achieve a lot of the things I set out to do. He was onboard. So we made a simple plan – create content everyday. Since then, we haven’t looked back.

It’s funny because when I think back at our life before all of this, we were pretty much two people with very little dreams. A lot of our time was spent relaxing in our apartment (not that there’s anything wrong with that). And now we’ve discovered a whole new world (albeit in Manchester) that we never even knew existed and it’s all been very exciting. Not to mention the opportunities we’ve been exposed to in doing what we do.

Life has a way of sorting things out when you decide to take action. Like I always say, the journey remains the important part of it all and not the destination. I’m very well aware of how far we’ve come and what its taken to get to this point. Gratitude is key in staying grounded at the same time remembering it’s okay to take it all in and relish in the moments that come alongside it.

Thanks for reading as always. Feel free to follow me on Instagram where I post daily and subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly videos.

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