We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley Noelle Edwards a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ashley Noelle, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
I became enchanted by wedding photography when I was searching for a photographer as a bride myself in 2010. I had always been an artist, even since early childhood, but also always had a fascination for weddings. I would spend hours as a little girl carefully cutting out pictures of wedding gowns and flowers from magazines and pasting them into journals. I would even cut and paste little photographs of stand mixers and china sets from catalogs as my pretend “wedding registry.” I know most people don’t think of wedding photography as fine art, but for me it was clear that it could be done in a way that made it special and of that caliber. Becoming a professional wedding photographer now seems like such a clear career path for me, but unfortunately it took me years to realize my gift for this profession.
When you have a ton of interests, it’s difficult to narrow down a professional path. When I entered college I was very young. I began university level courses at the age of just 16. In no way was I emotionally ready at that time to choose my career path, but that was what I was being expected to do. I chose psychology as my major and planned to eventually go to medical school to become a doctor. I knew I deeply cared for and wanted to help people. I knew I had unusually high levels of empathy, fairness, integrity, creative problem solving, grace under extreme pressure, and yes, artistic ability. I have always loved languages and pick them up fairly quickly when immersed in situations in which I have no choice but to learn them. I love science, research, and can work long hours easily because I am so excited by a challenge.
All of these personality traits sound great for a doctor, I was told. I could really help people. Yet here I am, a professional wedding photographer traveling the world and running a successful business in the luxury market. All of the time I spent volunteering in medical settings, all of the degrees I have or worked toward, all of the tests I took and pressure I put on myself could have been totally avoided if I had just known at the age of 16 that being a professional artist was NOT a terrible career choice that would render me unemployable and broke.
While I absolutely adore my job, my creative freedom, and the lifestyle my self-made career has afforded me, and sometimes wish I would’ve started at 16 rather than 30, I am actually proud of what I went through to get to this level and I believe all of my education and work experience outside of the wedding industry has helped me find success much faster than many of my industry peers. My ability to communicate effectively to resolve issues is definitely one area in which I consistently find myself offering advice to other wedding photographers. Handling the stress of a 12-hour wedding day with only one short break and a timeline that never stays on track due to unexpected disasters (think makeup rubbing off on the dress before the bride walks down the aisle, groomsmen indulging a little too much in festivities the night before and being late to the big day, etc.) has been informed by my volunteer work in Texas Emergency Rooms.
If I had skipped college, volunteer work, and professional work in the medical/social work field and had gone straight to wedding photography, I believe I would be happy now for sure. I wouldn’t have had to spend a hundred grand on making sure my student loans were totally paid back, which I did and feel is a huge accomplishment. While it would have been great to have been able to invest the years and the money I spent on my education into my business, I don’t think I would be the well-rounded, thoughtful, and inspired person I am today. I have always been great about seeking out knowledge on my own, which informs my work and inspires me to be more than just a person who shows up and takes easy to snap photos of what is happening or the decor at weddings with no thought or direction. However, my expensive education forced me in many ways to research and learn about things I doubt I ever would have looked into had I not been graded on it. Achieving success in school also gave me the much-needed confidence in myself that I had not been instilled with or supported and cared into very much as a child. Without that self-confidence I would never have had the guts to step into an Emergency Room to help others and I would not be able to now walk into a family’s expensive, once-in-a-lifetime event to take artistic images on real film that I won’t even see the results of for 2 weeks after the wedding.
The paths we take are what make life beautiful, stressful, chaotic, and ultimately worthwhile. I know in my heart I am exactly where I am meant to be and I am energized and excited about the future of my work as a photographer, both in the sphere of weddings and outside of it. If you have ever felt that you “wasted” years of your life on something, I want to inspire you to not waste time on regret. Extract the lessons and the value of what you went through, even if it was difficult or even painful. Feel the appropriate emotions, then use what you’ve learned to achieve your goals so you can live a life that feels good and meaningful to you, whatever that may be.
Ashley Noelle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a professional photographer. My main medium is film, but occasionally I shoot digital images. I photograph weddings, events, fashion, editorials, and commercial work. For the past decade my emphasis has been mainly weddings. Photographing weddings in a meaningful, artistic way is more challenging than most people realize. When you genuinely care about the quality and uniqueness of your craft as much as you care about pleasing your clients, the pressure is high. And I love it.
Clients come to me when they are frustrated by the lack of technical skills and expertise in the photography industry. Particularly in weddings, anyone can decide to be a wedding photographer, teach themselves the basics of operating cameras, apply some presets to the images or get a cheap point and shoot 35mm film camera and call it good enough. For many people, this is good enough. For my clients, “good enough” would be a nightmare.
My clients want me and only me. They want the exact way my brain processes and uses creative problem solving under pressure to create images that are routinely printed in the best magazines in the world. I am not replaceable and my clients know this. This means I can never be human. I can’t get sick, I can’t get into a car accident, I have to be there for one very specific day that cannot be rescheduled and no one can truly replace me. Fortunately, this kind of disaster is almost unheard of and would be rare for me. So my clients get images of their special day with heart, emotion, artistry, and service that goes above and beyond what most people would be comfortable offering. My clients get unique images of their real wedding day that are somehow documentary/reportage, editorial, fashion, macro detail shots, frame-able family portraits, and works of fine art all at once. In any kind of light. This is a rare service and my clients appreciate that and are willing to invest in hiring a real artist for their wedding, rather than opting for “good enough” run of the mill wedding photography services.
I am proud of the distinction my clients and the art/luxury lifestyle industries have given me and the space I have been afforded to create work like this. It is truly the work of my dreams and only gets closer and closer to my ideal with every wedding I photograph. I do not shy away from textures, color, shadows, or light. I do not consider any time of day difficult to shoot in on film or digital. I adore problem solving, a challenge, and managing my client expectations with grace and empathy. I love my brand because it isn’t a brand, not really. I am a real human creating real art for other real humans, not a service you can just book and pay for. This is such an unusual business model I think, but I love my life so much and am so grateful for the incredible clients who get it.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Because I signed up for social media when it was first offered, my experience may not be relatable today, but I am sure there can be some value found in my path. When I first signed up, I simply shared my thoughts, sense of humor, and images without care or thought. It was the best of times, honestly. The main users of social media were people my age, not literally every person you’ve ever met including friends parents and your kindergarten principal. The feeling of judgment was at an all-time low. Because I started out like this, just with this feeling that I was fine with me and everyone else was basically fine with me, too as long as they were not hateful, it made being who I really am in person the same as I am online very easy.
Somewhere around 2012 or so “authenticity” became a marketing buzzword and suddenly my openness wasn’t that unique anymore. Every bag of chips had a “heartfelt” origin story printed on the back. Suddenly everything was “crafted,” “artisan,” and oversharing on the internet was the norm. It was a strange combination of oversharing/authenticity and perfectly staged, idealized, performances of perfection on social media. People began reporting mental health struggles due to the feelings of “not being good enough” that they felt after viewing other people’s strategic posting to highlight only the best (and often an exaggeration) of their “real” lives.
When this happened, I became more guarded about what I posted. It seemed everyone was running PR for themselves as older people and people we knew in real life joined social media sites and apps. What we posted could suddenly ruin our careers and cause other real life consequences. It was easy to grow an audience during this time because suddenly having an audience for social media posts was a thing. I don’t recall anyone feeling our friends were an “audience” before this time.
When I started my business one would think I would have become even more guarded, but I didn’t. In many ways, I reverted back to my early days of Facebook, posting song lyrics as captions on my professional Instagram wedding work. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, and I think some people enjoyed that. Getting strangers to care about other people’s weddings is actually pretty difficult. Most brands (and celebrities) buy followers. It makes your business appear more polished, established, and trustworthy, which is important. At first this was greatly looked down upon (and is against Instagram’s terms of service and can get your account deleted, so I still don’t recommend doing this), but now it seems like everything is “pay to play” and I think a lot of people know this.
I have steadily built a following across multiple social media platforms, some with many more followers than others. I get unfollowed like anyone else, and I get followed mainly by other wedding photographers, other wedding pros, artists, musicians, actors, small businesses, and the friends and families of my clients or people I have met in real life on jobs. I think the best way to grow a real following is the hardest way: Go out into the world, meet people, exchange socials and follow each other. These have been the most rewarding follows I’ve had. The people who follow and then never interact are a total mystery to me. Or the people who follow just for me to follow back, then unfollow me to make it look like I’m their fan are just embarrassing. My advice is to never be this person. Despite what you may think, people do remember your name and will remember that you behaved in this way and you will be excluded from the cool kids table. Trust.
Your following is so irrelevant, to be honest. Numbers may make some prospective clients feel you are trustworthy, but the real ones know you probably bought some of those anyway or that some are bots and they focus on your actual work. I don’t worry about my number of followers. Why? Read the lengthy description above about my history on social media. It’s chaotic. It just doesn’t matter. In reality, good content is going to draw people in. Mediocre content is going to draw fewer people in, but one can still purchase a following to make it appear that mediocre content is “in fashion.” This skews the entire industry, people’s perceptions of quality, and because so many people simply follow the leader, there is a whole lot of below average work out there going for above average prices, and I believe only time will reveal who was great at marketing and who was a really solid photographer.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
My husband was my hero, my best friend, and one of the first people in my life to encourage me to become an artist and follow my dream of being able to make a living as a professional photographer. Sadly, he was diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer and I became a widow at a young age. While my husband was sick, I didn’t take on many pro gigs as a photographer. It was too risky and I never knew if he would need me to care for him or take him to the ER or spend time in the hospital where I would rarely leave his side. His health and well-being became my life’s focus and I will never regret that for an instant. When I lost him, it did shatter me. I had very little support. I clung to the support I did have and used my insane levels of resilience to quickly feel my emotions, not let them swallow me, and get back to doing what I felt would save me: my love of art, specifically photography.
I shot a wedding three months after my husband died. In many ways it was easy because I was still in shock. I had done a lot of anticipatory grieving and was able to use ever resource and strength within myself to not allow this horrible situation to end my career (or my life.) I got up every single day and did the next logical thing toward achieving the success and life I wanted for myself. I still do that. And when I need a break, I take one. I prioritize my emotional wellbeing and put those emotions into my work as a photographer. In a way, because the worst has already happened to me, I feel unbreakable. No challenge, no rejection of any kind, and no criticism (or accolade) will ever truly get to my heart or change the solid way I carry myself. Because I have been through so much at such a young age, I am incredibly strong, wise, and great in a crisis. I could be named the unanimous greatest photographer in the world by someone with really good taste or a prestigious publication and I would feel next to nothing. It would not change who I am at my core. I know exactly who I am and I know my worth. No criticism and no rave review (although appreciated) will ever change that. I think this is a hard-earned personality trait, but one everyone should strive to achieve. I think the world would be such a different place if we all knew our true value in it and therefore the value of others.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ashleynoelleedwards.com
- Instagram: ashleynoelleedwards
- Other: TikTok: @ashleynoelleedwards
Image Credits
All images copyright Ashley Noelle Edwards, LLC