Ah, the crispness of the fall preview has finally set in. School has started and the familiar rumblings of the big yellow buses have rolled down our neighborhood streets. Kids skip out to school in their new fall clothes. Can you tell I LOVE this time of year? While my kids are too young for school, they still look the part going to daycare and my oldest (at 3) gathers up her backpack every morning so she can be like the ‘big kids’ waiting for the bus outside. It’s times like these when you just want to stop time and take a look. Look at the wind blowing their little corn silk strands up. Look at the smiles and scrunchy-faced giggles for one moment and just breathe. These little people that you have created see the world through such innocent and excited eyes!

In my house, it’s a constant bustle of getting ready, brushing teeth, arguing about going to bed, and begging my little one to eat at least one carrot at dinner. Bribing and time outs become a toddlers’ life and as a parent, I always question myself. Am I nagging? Am I really too uptight? Is it worth it? Yes and No. So, in the fine print of my itinerary of hustling and bustling and bribing and begging, I decided that yes, I needed to get pictures done of the girls because “that’s what you do,” right? In fact, I had no professional shots of my now 10 month old Layla. I wanted to check this “to do” off my list. That’s when I met Ashley Gillett (http://ashleygillett.com). Thank goodness I did. Ashley’s unique process really threw that ‘list’ away and gave me a perspective that I needed. Let me explain:

After scheduling an appointment and agreeing to meet at a nearby park for a photo shoot (YES! No stuffy studios here!), I received a neat, beautiful package with everything I needed. Ashley’s materials she sent clearly explained what I could expect at our appointment.

Ashley states that “while at a photo shoot, I try to talk and get my clients comfortable with taking pictures. I know how uncomfortable it can be to have someone following you around taking pictures of you. Adults are usually more self-conscious than children, so I try to keep things light and keep things moving. With children, I do my best to get down on their level and make them smile. Most sessions involve walking around our location, scoping out a nice place to shoot, taking some photos, and moving on to the next spot. It’s really important to me to stay calm and low pressure.”

Ashley is very low pressure. She is so confident and so knowledgeable about lighting and texture and can keep things moving which helps with the very short attention spans of young children. While I was preoccupied with the skipping and running of my toddler everywhere, little did I know what Ashley was capturing! Ashley is an expert at keenly capturing “children just doing their thing.” She loves “to follow them around and get shots of them thinking to themselves. We’re so accustomed to studio photos that we often think that if the child is not smiling and looking at the camera, it’s not a keeper photo. I try to find a happy medium between the two.” Let me say that as someone used to growing up having studio shots, and having my first born get those studio shots, I was very concerned that the kids weren’t looking right or smiling or staying put!

I came home after the photo shoot (which was about an hour) exhausted. I was so stressed thinking that my kids were moving everywhere and my 3 year old wasn’t paying attention. I was convinced I wasted Ashley’s time and mine! I was not used to the style and the process and not having closed walls and those awful backgrounds (that do not look real by the way) from studios. How in the world could Ashley have even gotten one decent shot?

A week passed. Then the pictures came.

Wrapped up in a box with a neat bow were my pictures. As I unwrapped the bow and sat myself down, I prepared for the worst. As I looked at them, time stood still. My time. My little babies were laughing and playing and blowing bubbles. Their eyes glistened with happiness and playfulness. My little one looked at her older sister with awe and admiration. My older three year old- the one that was all over the place- was smiling coyly as if she could take over the world. The light jumped off their little faces and their smiles lit up the entire shot. I literally was almost brought to tears because at that moment I realized something. This is what was important in life. It wasn’t a posed picture or false beach background. It was my baby playing with an old necklace I found in my diaper bag. It was my toddler blowing bubbles, not caring that she was practically spilling the bottle out. They were having fun!

I’ll tell you that at that moment, I was so proud that I had Ashley capture their lives and not their “cheese!” smiles. They smiled in some shots, they were looking away in others. They were beautiful and surreal. I encourage everyone to visit Ashley’s site at http://ashleygillet.com and see what she can do. Some of her shots are just amazing. I sat down with Ashley and asked her just what makes her tick. This is what she told me:

“One of my favorite shoots I did before I started my company. It was of a good friend of mine and her three month old son. I didn’t really know what I was doing and I kind of made it up as I went along. She had had profession photos done lots of times before, so I didn’t want to seem that clueless. If I did, she didn’t let on. She was gracious and let me move her and her baby around all over the place for me to achieve the shots. A few of the images I made are still some of my favorite. They are perfect representations of the love of a mother for her child. I was very happy to be able to share such a special time in their lives.

I’ve always loved photography and art, in general. I’m very attracted to beautiful things and could stare at a pretty cloudy sky all day if I had the time. A few years ago, I started messing around with the photos I’d take of myself – editing them with crazy effects, turning them to black and white, and so on. However, it wasn’t until late last year that I started to think more seriously about photography. After our nice Canon dslr broke, my fiancé decided that rather than sending it off for repairs, we’d get a Nikon. And that was the turning point. I started photographing random things in my house, flowers in my yard, anything. Before Christmas of 2009, I decided that I was going to start my own company. I took tons of photos of friends and family and researched what it really took to start a photography business. Half a year later, here I am. Ashley Gillett Photography, at your service.”

Ashley puts kids at ease and captures their LIFE- how they see it. “We’re always waiting for that special moment for photos. So much so, that time ends up passing us by and we’re left with nothing but a memory and maybe a few snapshots.”

Don’t let any more time pass by. I encourage you to visit Ashley’s blog at ashleygillett.com or email her at Ashley@ashleygillett.com. She literally changed the way I look at my kids. My stressors of time, money, and brushing teeth right now are not on their itineraries. While those are important things, they are more concerned about how sand feels between their toes, how delicious a Popsicle is or how amazing it is to stand up without holding on to anything. I can’t thank Ashley enough for capturing these special moments. One day my kids will be grown but I’ll remember how my baby watched her big sister blow bubbles and it was magic.