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

Erin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I got into photography to capture memories. After losing my dad last year, I realized just how important my job is. After someone is gone, all we have left are memories. Photographs enrich those memories, and bring you right back to that moment. I hope my legacy will be those beautiful moments I capture for all of my clients, moments they can look back on for generations and feel the emotion in them.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a wedding and portrait photographer based out of Arizona. My style of photography is very bright, bold, warm and true to color. My favorite things to shoot are weddings and maternity. I love capturing connections between people. I use a lot of prompts when posing my clients to make them feel more at ease, there’s a lot of fun and laughing during my sessions. I’m a mom to two amazing children, Parker and Paisley. They love getting their pictures taken by momma and help me scout out new locations when I’m not shooting or editing. I’ve been married to my wonderful husband Matt for 8 years now, we currently live in Queen Creek Arizona.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A huge issue I had when I was first starting out was playing the comparison game. I joined all of the photography groups on Facebook and wasn’t understanding why my work wasn’t as great as these other photographers. It took me a long time to realize, these people who’s work I admire, started off right where I was. Nobody is perfect at anything right away. It takes work, dedication and practice. I had to learn to only compete with myself, that the only person I needed to be better than was myself the day before.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Covid put a huge strain on my business last year. I had to try a new business approach, I started offering fine art landscape prints to supplement my income while we waited for restrictions to lift. Once I was able to get back to shooting, I made some changes to my packages. Weddings were much smaller affairs so I started adding elopement packages, those really took off and helped clients still have beautiful wedding photos without a full day of coverage commitment.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.erinashleyphotography.com
• Instagram: Www.Instagram.com/erinashleyphotographyaz
• Facebook: Www.Facebook.com/erinashleyphotography