Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Morrisey. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Ashley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later?

Western Sky Photography officially launched in 2021, but the real story starts in 2011. That’s when I took on my first client as a side gig while working full time as a hospital pharmacy technician. For a decade, photography lived alongside my day job, through 3 years of getting a Doctorate of Pharmacy, my marriage, and welcoming two little kids who were two and four years old when I finally made things official.

I spent years talking myself out of launching. Fear of failing. Fear of turning something I loved into something that felt like work. Fear of adding one more thing to a life that was already full. So I kept saying “someday” – until someday turned into just doing it.

Here’s what’s funny though: the style of photography I’m most known for – in-home newborn and family sessions – actually found me long before I launched a business around it. I did my first lifestyle in-home newborn session in 2014 for a coworker after stumbling onto lifestyle newborn photography. I quickly realized that everything I’d been trying to do before that (highly posed, studio-style newborn work) was fighting against what I actually loved about photography. That session lit something up for me that hasn’t gone out since.

Would I have started sooner? Maybe – but with an asterisk. The version of me that launched in 2021 knew nothing about starting a business. But, more importantly, she knew what she wanted to do. Fear cost me time, but it also meant I showed up with more clarity about the kind of photographer I was and the kind of work I wanted to build a business around. I’d tell past-me to trust herself sooner, but I don’t think she’s a little stubborn and probably would not have listened anyway!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Ashley, the photographer behind Western Sky Photography, based in University Place and serving the greater Tacoma, WA area. I’ve been picking up cameras for the majority of my life, and I’ve been doing this as a business since 2021.

My work lives primarily in two places: in-home newborn and family sessions. Both are rooted in the same belief – that your real life, your actual house, your kids losing their minds over something small and wonderful, is exactly the right backdrop for photos you’ll want forever. I’m not here to create a Pinterest board. I’m here to document what your family actually feels like.

In-home newborn sessions are my absolute favorite thing to do. Those few few weeks at home are so unique and fleeting – the way a new baby fits against a parent’s chest, the older sibling cautiously reaching over to touch a tiny hand, the exhausted and overwhelmed and completely in-love look on a new parent’s face. I pay attention to all of it. I’m quiet in the family’s space, I follow the baby’s lead, and I’m always thinking about the details they’re going to want to remember ten years from now.

Family sessions, especially those at home, are a very close second. I tell parents upfront: let your kids be kids. Chaos is fine. Feelings are fine. The in-between, unplanned moments are the ones that end up being the favorites. Every family I work with has a different story, and my job is to notice it.

What sets me apart, I think, is that I work hard so that sessions feel easy. Families tell me afterward that they forgot I was there, or that it didn’t feel like a photo shoot. That’s the goal.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Three books have genuinely shaped how I think about running a business: Essentialism by Greg McKeown, Deep Work by Cal Newport, and You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero. Together they’ve pushed me toward doing fewer things better, protecting my focus, and getting out of my own way – all things that matter when you’re running a small business solo.

On the podcast side, This Can’t Be That Hard has been a cornerstone for me, especially for the business-realted aspects of photography. And Photo Fuel, hosted by Leah O’Connell, has been genuinely transformative. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Leah as a mentor, and her influence shows up not just in how I approach photography, but in how I think about running a business alongside a full life with kids. She’s helped me get clearer on what I’m actually doing and why, which turns out to be the foundation everything else is built on.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part of this work is showing families that exactly as they are is enough, and then proving it to them through photographs.

I do a lot of in-home photography, which means I’m regularly invited into people’s real spaces on ordinary days. And every single time, I walk in thinking about what’s going to matter to this particular family down the road. Not what looks good in a grid, but what will make them catch their breath when they see it 5 or 20 years from now.

I encourage kids to be kids. I encourage parents to resist managing the moment and just be in it. And then something real happens, whether that be a look, a laugh, a tiny hand wrapped around a finger, and I get to be the one who caught it.
That’s the part I’ll never get tired of: handing someone back a memory they didn’t even know they were making.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.westernsky-photography.com
• Instagram: @westernsky_photography

Image Credits

Photographer photo: Brittany Brady Photography

All other images: Western Sky Photography