Olivia Grayson Interiors: PHOTOGRAPHY: the best decorative investment you can make

I am a huge fan of creative photography and a firm believer that you should invest in it. As cliche as it may sound, times passes us all by so quickly and I love being able to reflect back on those precious memories captured by a lens. My parents have always been big into taking pictures and videos, and I followed suite by asking for a camera for my birthday in second grade. I quickly became the go-to for my friends when in high school and college because I take pictures of everything.

It wasn't until I got married and mistakenly hired a photographer without much experience that I realized it is truly something you need to invest in for those special moments you can't ever recapture. We really thought we were hiring a "photojournalistic" style photographer, but the shots just weren't up to par in my mind once we received the prints. Don't get me wrong, my parents definitely forked out some cash, but with no prior wedding planning experience I really didn't know what to look for in a photographer.

Six years later and pregnant with twins, we knew this was the opportunity to seize the moment and find a photographer we love. Enter our girl, Ashley Glasco. I actually grew up with her husband, but didn't really get to personally know her until over the past year. We hit it off immediately and fell more in love with her work each session. We decided to do a maternity shoot and then follow up with a session every three months after they were born. At first, I thought every three months may be a little overkill, but after seeing how much they have changed and how gorgeous the pictures are, I have no regrets.

We use photographs all over the house and they are the most important and my favorite personal touch. From gallery walls to canvases to table top frames, I really love them in all forms. Displaying photographs of your family, friends, children, and pets are the most personal and intimate touches you can add to make your house a home. Here are some of the pictures from our three month session up close and personal.

Three month session

Ashley Glasco Photography

I am no expert, but based on my experiences, here is what I looked for in a photographer, and happened to find in Ashley.

The style of the photographer reflects your own personal taste. Our photographer is an on location natural light photographer. She specializes in taking pictures outdoors and truly captures reality. I fell in love with her vintage, rustic vibe. Being that we live on a farm, this fit our family perfectly!
Your personalities mesh and you feel a personal connection with your photographer. We clicked right away personality wise and she is able to handle my husband's humor. I really did not want our pictures to look forced and because she keeps us at ease and we are comfortable, she is able to capture our true personalities.
The photographer has multiple examples of their work for you to view or references for you to contact. This is the mistake we made with our wedding photographer. He only had two weddings for us to reference, one of which was a friend's wedding. Our bad. We should have continued to do more research. Our new photographer has dozens of sessions on her website, blog, and Facebook page.
Know what to expect up front and call him on it if he doesn't deliver. Our wedding photographer promised us "beautiful leather bound albums," which actually turned out to be the pleather albums you slide snapshots into from Target. Unfortunately, I was young and at a loss for words when he handed them over. Thankfully, our new photographer, Ashley, helped Jeremy by re-editing our pictures so he could put together a professional album using our wedding negatives for my Christmas gift last year (better late than never, right?). When communicating with her for the baby sessions, she gave us every last detail for our package and delivered everything as promised every time.

Six Month Session