LA is a big city, but the community that you find can become close knit, as if you were in a small town. Erica and Ashley met at a retreat in Santa Barbara where Erica was speaking on a panel about Women + Business, and Ashley was capturing all of the magic. 

Erica is a yogi and runs the yoga school Inquire + Inspire, a 200 Hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training. Since 2006, Erica has been traveling the world teaching yoga and running teacher training primarily in the Middle East and Europe, in 2021, she’ll be in Dubai and Prauge to teach her 200-hour Vinyasa course.  When she isn’t traveling the world teaching, you can find her within various apps or register for one of her online classes. 

With her passion for Yoga and for teaching others, Erica was sure she wanted to work with  someone who was of a similar mindset to help her capture some new visuals for her website and social media. 

“Ashley sees what I don’t. She captures the essence of a moment or an experience in the most beautiful, magical and inspirational way. “ said Erica while discussing the project. The first shoot resulted in a collection of dynamic images for Erica’s social media and website. A year or so later, Erica found herself in need of video and more images to coincide with her online teaching course.

 It’s a long term community when you work with me. I’m here when you’re ready for the next evolution of your business. I often see anywhere from 6 months, a year to 2 years. Erica and I created really beautiful images together when she was building her social media presence and when she reached out a year later to let me know what was unfolding in her business I was so excited at the opportunity to really help take her brand to the next level. I work with clients who are at different stages in their business. They’re usually about 3 key levels and Erica is at that level where some really beautiful transformation happens” Ashley says while discussing the shoot. . “There’s always an extra element to the branding shoot strategy when the client is not necessarily going through a rebrand but a continuation in their evolution.  With Erica, we needed to make sure all of the images and videos blend together seamlessly with the first shoot.“

The two shot all day, “the light was heavenly and on our side that day” Ashley pointed out and notes it helped ease the accumulation of both shoots for Erica’s entire brand to create a smooth look that flowed.  Ashley said that it is easy for her to only shoot what the client asks for. 
“I think part of the art of being able to create truly recognizable branding and creating dynamic images that are going to be timeless within someone’s brand is being able to utilize the questionnaire I use or dig deep into understanding clients goals, and to get a feel for where they hope their business will go. Erica was one of those clients with a clear vision and had a lot of preparation for her shoot. We were able to be clear on what shots were needed which also allowed us time to be open to what the shoot wanted to give us. When you look on Instagram at someone’s grid that feels like it flows perfectly, and that matches their website perfectly- a lot of

people think that happens over night. I do my best to maximize the efficiency of the Photoshoot for my client. Branding photography is a strategy with a lot of layers when done right and as the client you step into that when you really start to commit to your business. It takes hours of brand/business strategy, storyboarding, creating presets, editing, and planning to really get that flow throughout someone’s online presence.”  Ashley says as we scroll together through Erica’s latest round of images. 

Similar to a yoga practice, Ashley’s goal at the conclusion of each project is that each of the final pieces flow together, so that each dynamic piece can stand on its own but also work together to create a full picture and story of each brand that she works with.

“Erica has some really beautiful content. I tried to pull the essence of my client into the imagery we create. It’s a direct reflection of the person’s being in the visuals. As much as we prep and plan, allowing intuition, guidance and the creative process to flow when you’re in the moment can really surprise you with what shows up on the screen. It’s little bits of magic in 2D form.