We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashton Walker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashton below.

Hi Ashton, thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

If I was starting my business from scratch I would absolutely put a lot more time and effort into making genuine connections with clients and people who get excited to work with me! I remember booking so many sessions when I first got started, and having a lot of people take advantage of me and my time as a newbie photographer and that was a bit disheartening. But, at the same time I met so many amazing people I wish I would’ve stayed in contact with better! It’s so much fun getting to shoot for return clients, and getting to grow with them and continue to be part of their lives and stories!

Ashton, 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’m a wedding, engagement, and lifestyle photographer in the DFW area who loves to capture candid and real emotions. I’m all about capturing what’s really happening in the moment and not staging anything. My favorite thing is when people look back at photos and remember where they were at that point in their lives and what they were feeling! My ‘official’ business got started in 2020, and while you would think that would be a struggle it was actually such a blessing in disguise. Every single client and couple I worked with were so genuine and I had so many backyard weddings I had the honor to attend and capture and be invited into these families homes and share these special moments with them! I, of course, did everything as safely as I could as a business owner but it was such a relief to have some success my first year as a business during a global pandemic. Now, I still love to make those genuine connections with the people I work with and providing with the best service and photos possible for them because that’s the most important thing to me as a business: making connections with others so I can help capture their memories in the most authentic way possible.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Turning my photography business into a full time career was honestly such a crazy thing that I wasn’t expecting to happen so fast. As soon as I graduated from college in 2020, I was so into my business and feeling so excited about it and wanting to see how far I could go with it! I reached out to a lot of people about how to book more clients and how to grow my instagram… and then suddenly I had a full summer with weddings and engagement sessions and senior shoots,,, it was crazy. And from there I just continued doing what I loved to do, take photos of people and then either from my website, Instagram, or word of mouth, people just kept coming to book me! I still feel so incredibly grateful for being able to seamlessly transition from college to wedding photography as my main career path. It is still such a joy for me to be able to do this every single day!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being a photographer for me is making other people happy. To me, it’s so important for this business to not revolve around me and wanting to get the ‘perfect’ shot that I want or that I know will blow up on Instagram… because that’s not lasting gratification to me. It comes and goes so quickly and Instagram can be so finicky with what performs well and what doesn’t, so if you focus on that part too much you can so easily burn out. For me, the joy of being able to photograph a moment in peoples lives for them to look back and remember and show to their friends, family and children when they get older is the best part. The cherry on top is, of course, if people message me and tell me how much they love their images, how much they mean to them, etc. It touches me as a creative and pushes me to keep going and furthering my craft for my future clients so I can be even better for them!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ashtonkayphoto.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashton_kay_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashtonkayphotography

Image Credits
Ashton Kay Photography