Meet Ashley (Leffew) Casey

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley (Leffew) Casey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley, thank you so much for making time for us today. We’re excited to discuss a handful of topics with you, but perhaps the most important one is around decision making. The ability to make decisions is a key requirement for anyone who wants to make a difference and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your decision-making skills.

As a photographer you’re working through decisions constantly. On a wedding day timelines may run behind, challenges may arise that you have to be able to pivot and make real-time choices that are for the benefit of your clients. If we’re crunched for time after the ceremony and the family portrait list is long: how can we decide on consolidating down this list? Maybe the decision is to group certain shots together and we keep the photos movingly efficiently, while ensuring that the important members of the family once couple are included. A big way to be able to make good decisions like that when things come up is knowing your couple well. I send over a detail questionnaire before a wedding day so I know exactly how I can photograph their day effectively. Decisions also are constantly being made during family sessions. If we’ve got a session scheduled and it’s calling for a down pour how can i move the location or time to accommodate them and their session. Investing in photos is just that a big investment of time and money, so being able to serve clients well requires good decision making. Another example if we’re right in the middle of a family session and it’s golden hour, past bedtime for the kids and they are just not having it. How can we salvage that? Another decision-making opportunity. Let’s have the kids chase mom and dad and see if we get come fun candids or let’s move on to other members of the family and circle back.

I think my decision-making skills came from honest trial and error. Seeing what has worked best over the last several years as a photographer and leaning into that.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a wedding, elopement and family photographer in the Great Smoky Mountains. It is literally the best job in the world and I absolutely love it!! I work with clients from all over the world who come here to the Smokies on vacation or for their destination weddings. It’s such a joy to be able to show a family or couple a beautiful spot in the area for the first time and document the most important day for them through photography. I also have a special place in my heart for my job as it has given me the opportunity to be able to spend most weekdays with my son. As a first time mom, it is so special that I can be able to be a working mostly from home mom. I cannot thank my clients enough for trusting me to photograph their families and what a blessing it’s been to mine in this season of life.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think that three areas of knowledge that have been super impactful on my journey are the ability to stay flexible, realizing that photography is a service based industry and lastly, that it’s all about capturing the true personalities of a couple or family. The knowledge that staying flexible has been super helpful along my journey. Things happen, weather happens, timelines run behind and kids want to run around always. If you’re flexible you’re able to roll with the punches.
Photographers are in a serviced based industry. I am always trying to serve my clients better, elevate the experience they’re receiving from me. I think that’s been a huge thing I’ve realized that’s help make my business successful.
Lastly, you can be in the most beautiful location in the world, but if you’re not able to capture true emotion, joy, laughter, clients having a good time together the images will suffer. I try to keep weddings days, elopements and family sessions light hearted and a fun time. The best images document a moment where someone is just being authentically them.

Advice I would give those trying out would be to just practice with the gear you have and get extremely proficient with your setting, light, editing, etc. I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of “oh if I just had this camera or this lens my work would be so much better.”

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

My parents taught me the art of hardwork. They worked so hard to give my sister and I so many wonderful opportunities. I would be nothing without their support and love. And they have continued to show up in my son’s life. It means so much! Always having them being super encouraging led me to begin this business and my husband purchasing my first camera.

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