Hey Everyone! Welcome if you’re new and welcome back if you’ve been here. Today’s going to be short sweet and too the point. These are the destinations I would love to have a chance to visit and photograph as a professional. 

• Madrid, Spain
• Rome, Italy
• Paris, France
• The Great Wall of China
• Venice, Italy
• Greece
• Castles in Germany
• London, England
• the Cathedral in France
• Melbourne, Australia 
• Sydney, Australia
• Niagara Falls
• Tokyo, Japan

     I’m sure there are so many more so maybe in the future I’ll make an updated version! In the comments below let me know where you’d love to travel to!

~Ashley

      Hey Everyone! Welcome back or welcome if you’re new! I just had my second wedding of the year on Friday and it was absolutely wonderful! But that blog will come later! Today I wanna talk about how I prepare the morning of a wedding to get into the right mindset.

     The morning of a wedding I will make sure first and foremost my batteries are fully charged. Even if I spent the night before putting them on the charger, I like to double check to be completely sure. This is just erring on the side of caution for myself. I’ll even through some of my rechargeable batteries on their charger to recheck them. This might seem useless but it’s just another check on my checklist. 

      I like to go back down my list to make I have everything on it. As you can guess I’m a double checker for everything! And odds are, I’m still going to misplace or forget something minor. Chances are I will leave my camera straps behind. At this point if I’ve gone over the list, I will then load everything into the car to have it all ready to go.

     After I’ve double checked everything more than once, I will print the form that I have the couples fill out before that day. I do print mine in three copies, one for myself as the main shooter, one for the second shooter, and a third clean copy in case something happens to one of the others. After this I will go through and highlight everything in three different shades. One shade is what my second shooter should be focusing on. I like them to keep busy while helping out to make sure we cover every single possible shot. The second color is what the main shooter is focusing on. And finally the third shade is what both shooters can capture different versions of it at different times. The final step in this is to hole punch these and put them into binders for each shooter. The third copy goes in it’s own binder in the car.

      Sometimes the morning of a wedding I’ll jump on Pinterest and look at different styles of wedding photos and new creative ideas that I could turn into my own. This way I get inspired for the day and see where this leads me. Sometimes I’ll even look back at old wedding photos I’ve taken to see if I really liked any one certain type of photos to try again.

      Mostly I really think about how everything is going to be covered and getting into the mind set of where I’d like to be and staying positive throughout the day. Weddings are stressful for everyone involved but they are also an absolutely wonderful thing to capture. 

      If you’re married, let me know what your favorite photograph you received from your wedding. If you’re not married, let me know what photograph you hope is covered from your wedding day.

      Hopefully you all have a wonderful weekend! 

~Ashley  

    Hello there fellow readers. Thank you for stopping in if you’ve been here before and welcome here if you’re new. I hope you all having a wonderful day! Today I want to talk about the reason I love editing. Some people don’t find any joy in any editing. I find that it can work miracles in situations with unpredictable weather. From adding in beautiful sunsets, to editing out power lines or trees that just look strange.

    You can change the entire scene behind someone with a few clicks if you’re using a green screen. The possibilities are absolutely endless. With photoshop these days you can achieve even the craziest sky swap if you play with it. Creativity is a wonderful thing to play with when you have the chance to!

      Being able to create different things or achievements. I love being able to add unseen things to an image or change what’s already there to a different spot in the image or remove something that shouldn’t be there.  Even just adding the simple touch of a filter or vignette.  

     I’ve always took my time editing images so they can live up to the highest potential and vision in my head. I have really high expectations for myself while I’m creating the photos. I want to create beautiful images that can come across as a piece of art.  

       What’s your favorite thing to photograph? Let me know down below!

~Ashley

      Hey Everyone! Welcome if you’re new here and thank you to everyone who’s come back for another post!

     I’ve done a lot of photos in the past four years and I’ve been extremely lucky over the last few years! I put my heart behind all my photos and love to share them all as often as possible. 

     I’ve been lucky enough to photograph some very cool bands perform and some very beautiful places in the United States. I’ve captured the portraits of people who were taking their next step in life whether it was leaving high school or making their family bigger.  

      I want to share these photos with the world as often as possible, I’ve been very lucky. I strive to work hard to continue to show off new work as it comes. Thank you all for the support!

~Ashley

Hello Everyone! Thank you for stopping in if you are new and welcome back if you’ve been here before!

Senior sessions are some of my favorite sessions to do. Having your senior portraits taken are almost like a right of passage for a graduating class. Some of the students go all out during there sessions. Creative sessions of all sorts. I’ve seen powder paint shoots, glitter blowing shoots, sport photos in dress close shoots, special fx makeup shoots, etc. I absolutely love when I come across a senior who wants to do something crazy and fun. There are so many things out there that can be done to make them stand out in one last effort of being your own person in high school and wowing the crowd.

I’ve accumulated a lot of senior Session props so I can customize every single session to the person that’s in the photos. Each person is different and has different taste. So I like to have seniors fill out a form talking about themselves so I can get a small glimpse into who they are and what they might like to do. This way I can customize props to every individual.

Thank you all for stopping in and being here I hope you all have a wonderful day! 

~Ashley

Hello everyone!

Welcome back and thank you if you’ve been here before. Welcome to my writings if you’re new and thank you for being here!

I am going to keep this post short and simple and putting out a huge thank you to the clients I’ve had over the past month. And another huge thank you to The Q & Z Expo Center for putting on the amazing shows that I get to capture there! These photos are some of my favorites from the month of May. I’m so grateful for being able to do something I love to do as frequently as I get to do it! 

Please take a moment to comment below and let me know what your favorite photo in this group is!

Hope you all have a great evening and stay safe! 

Ashley

Hello to everyone out there! I’m already trying to move mountains in 2019 with photos and I feel like it’s going to be a great year! Today I want to tell you about what editing programs I use. I will do another blog about my editing process that hopefully will be put out tomorrow!

            The very first program that I use is Adobe Bridge. The reason that I use Bridge is to go through my raw files to delete any photos that are blurry or unfixable. All wrong angles, multiples that look too similar, or even just photos that I feel missed the composition that I was going for. Also, while I’m in this program I will pick a few photos that I consider simple edits to use as a sneak preview for either Facebook or just the person(s) in the photos.

            The next program I use for my first round of editing is Adobe Lightroom Classic CC. What I mean by first edits is simple fixes or simple color corrections. I will usually add presets, do some simple lighting corrections, and some simple color corrections. I’ll also After doing these things, I consider some of the photos done at this point. The ones I consider done at this point will be watermarked in Lightroom.

            The final program I use to edit is Adobe Photoshop CC. In photoshop I tend to do more extreme edits. Overlays, background fixes, and skin fixes. Sometimes I will do head swaps if the photo calls for it. At the point that the photos are opened in Photoshop I will also do more in depth color corrections.

            Thank you for stopping in and checking out my writings! Stay wonderful!

            ~Ashley

Hello to everyone new, and welcome back to everyone else!

            Today I’m going to talk a little bit about how I organize my photos. I won’t go too much into depth because everyone does this step differently. I try to stay as organized at possible, but there are times that I fall behind. I break all of my photo sessions by type, date, and sometimes month. So, without further ado, here is how I organize my photos.

            The first thing I do at the beginning of the year when I start getting folders ready is to make a folder called ‘2019’. Inside this folder I create two new folders named ‘Editing’ and ‘Website’. This just helps me see what I’m still working on and what has been fully edited and ready to be uploaded onto my website. I try to keep up to date as much as possible.

            Inside the ‘Editing’ folder I will normally create folders named ‘Wedding’, Engagement’, ‘Senior’, ‘Concert’. ‘Family’, ‘Sights’, and ‘Model’. This way I know where everything is easily, and what I have to work on. I love keeping everything separated by the type of session, therefore I can quickly find photos to share if need be for any new potential clients or even to show off for posts to hopefully find new clients.

            Inside my ‘Website’ folder I don’t normally create too many folders to break them up inside. Since I am just posting them to my website. I don’t need to find these photos as quickly as those in my editing folder. The photos that are inside of the ‘Website’ folder is usually lower resolution.

            This is basically how I organize my photos throughout the year. Sometimes I will label them by month taken to make them a bit easier. Other than that, I just try to keep them in their correct folders and keep as up to date as possible. Just a little insight into the chaos of keeping everything in order in my world. I hope you all have a wonderful day.

 ~Ashley

Hello and welcome to all of my followers!

I hope everyone out there is having a wonderful day and if you’re not I hope it gets better for you! Today I’m writing about an embarrassing moment I’ve had while in the world of photography. But today’s edition is all about those embarrassing moments while shooting concerts. I’m pretty sure I’ve done some embarrassing things that even I don’t remember. But here are the few I do fully remember.

  One of my favorite that has happened this far into photographing concerts has been one of my first ever concerts in the photo pit. I was trying to stay under crowd viewing level, so I wasn’t blocking anyone’s view. When I went to move forward I tripped over my own feet and fell onto my butt. One of the band members caught this happen and got a good kick out of it also. This has since happened quite a bit in photo pits over the last 4 years. This is also one of my most memorable embarrassing moments. It has since been brought up in a lot of conversations and brought joy to a lot of people.

At one point a couple years ago I was photographing a show that didn’t have a specific photo pit area. At these shows you just kind of make the crowed your own. In doing this, you’re making your way around people who are just trying to enjoy the show without blocking their view. This is where my embarrassing moment comes in. I got super close to the front speakers and was trying to inch my way just inside this are to crouch down and snap a few photos closer up that the back of the crowed. When I finally got down in front, the singer of the band had just decided to move his mic stand to the side. It happened to fall right on top of me. While this isn’t the most embarrassing thing, it still makes the list being the butt of the jokes the rest of the night for being ‘in the way’.

While being in the photo pit, there are many moments where the band might jump down into the photo pit and you must move out of their way quickly. One of those moments I was standing off to the side of the stage and the singer was jumping down to go into the crowd, I had to move backwards quickly and try to not trip. In concentrating on moving, I tripped over my own feet once again and fell back into the wall. I sat and laughed on the side for a few moments before I started taking photos again.

I wouldn’t trade any of these moments for the world. I’ve met amazing people over the last few years doing this, and I have some amazing memories from doing this. Thank you all for reading this.

Have a wonderful day!

~Ashley

Hello Everyone!

Hopefully your year has gone by smoothly! 2018 has been one crazy ride with so many new adventures. I’d like to take a moment to recap just how fun of a year this has been! I’ve met so many new people and even photographed a few bucket list items that I’ve been waiting to see. It’s been a fun year to say the least so Thank You to everyone who has supported me in this wild journey I’ve been on!

            In 2018 I have photographed a huge variety of different bands. So many cool shots have come out of this! The Q & Z Expo Center has been my main Venue that I continually shoot at. This place has one of the most friendly and welcoming crowds that I’ve ever seen, and or been a part of. It has become a second home for me over the past few years. So many of my 2018 recap photos will have been out of here. Every photos description from this recap will have details of the band, what venue it was taken at, and why I chose it! Here are my 2018 concert photo recap from this year:

            I’ve also been extremely lucky traveling over the span of 2018! Seeing tons of new wonderful sights that I have never seen before. I would love to show you some of my favorite photos that have come out of my travels of the year below. The details of the scenery will be listed in the description of the photos! Here are my 2018 travel photo recaps from this year:

  This year has been a wild ride that has included so many different photo opportunities! From weddings to senior portraits and models. Meeting new people who love doing what they love to do and helping them express it in different ways to be able to live and pursue their dreams! Here are my 2018 portrait photo recaps from this year:

            Thank you to all the amazing bands I’ve come across and who have shared my work and helped me grow this year. Thank you to all the venues, owners, and promoters that have given me the chances to photograph their events and meet these amazing bands. Thank you to all my friends who have shared my work or made appointments with me to capture moments in their lives to live on forever. Mostly thank you to my parents for always supporting me and helping me achieve my dreams and doing what I love.

            Be safe and happy new year to everyone! Have a wonderful day!

-Ashley