✨I am a lover and seeker of light, life, culture and connection.
✨I am a passionate mother to our sweet growing girl Orion, my greatest teacher and guide.
✨I am a dedicated wife to a sincere South African immigrant, who is now a firefighter for Orange County whom I met on Mafia Island, off the coast of Tanzania while volunteering teaching English in a small village to 132 students while he was running a whale shark conservation camp, we made love in a tree house and well, I live my dream life everyday.
✨I am a student of this world, our expansively inspirational world learning through traveling, submerging, connecting, listening, questioning and being guided by my teachers and inner voice.
✨I am a seeker through intentionally living, readings, pulling cards and connecting to spirit.
✨I am a humble entrepreneur where I’ve utilized my degrees in Business Marketing and Africana Studies, coupled with five years of non-profit experience, wrapped around getting to live, love, and teach around the world for three years, being a photographer for over a decade and an intentional entrepreneur for seven.
✨Quite frankly, I just love love. I love pure love. I love heart-pulsing, body vibrating, soul piercing, I couldn't be more grateful for you kind of love!
I love love in a way that love is the answer to all things. Love is the pulse between all of us. Love within the intertwined union of a couple, love wrapped around an ever growing family, love of oneself and the expansiveness that life is at this very moment. Love is - the vibration that connects all of us.
✨I am a passionate mother to our sweet growing girl Orion, my greatest teacher and guide.
✨I am a dedicated wife to a sincere South African immigrant, who is now a firefighter for Orange County whom I met on Mafia Island, off the coast of Tanzania while volunteering teaching English in a small village to 132 students while he was running a whale shark conservation camp, we made love in a tree house and well, I live my dream life everyday.
✨I am a student of this world, our expansively inspirational world learning through traveling, submerging, connecting, listening, questioning and being guided by my teachers and inner voice.
✨I am a seeker through intentionally living, readings, pulling cards and connecting to spirit.
✨I am a humble entrepreneur where I’ve utilized my degrees in Business Marketing and Africana Studies, coupled with five years of non-profit experience, wrapped around getting to live, love, and teach around the world for three years, being a photographer for over a decade and an intentional entrepreneur for seven.
✨Quite frankly, I just love love. I love pure love. I love heart-pulsing, body vibrating, soul piercing, I couldn't be more grateful for you kind of love!
I love love in a way that love is the answer to all things. Love is the pulse between all of us. Love within the intertwined union of a couple, love wrapped around an ever growing family, love of oneself and the expansiveness that life is at this very moment. Love is - the vibration that connects all of us.
Since a little girl, I’ve been enamored by the power of documenting, stopping, ultimately encapsulating a moment in time. Photography was embedded in my soul. Days documenting turned into weekends scrapbooking, then eventually weekends apprenticing under a wedding photographer and weekends being spent documenting my very clients.
For years, photography was a “side hustle” something I did at nights and weekends after working my “responsible 9-5.” Then, one very loud and unforgettable day in 2012, a question came into my existence, shook me up and immediately changed every aspect of my life. “Am I really living or am I simply existing?” At that point in my life, I was simply existing.
I immediately brought to life a lifelong dream, teaching and living in Africa. I applied for and got accepted to teach English on Mafia Island, Tanzania with World Teach. There, I feel in love with myself, with life, with a sensationally sincere South African man, who is now my husband. Upon completing my teaching assignment, I came home and immediately got my TEFL and yoga certifications to teach around the world - which brought me to living and teaching in South Africa and Costa Rica. All the while I was falling in love in these exotic and inspirational places around the world, so too was my camera guiding my heart and encapsulating that which I was witnessing.
Upon returning to the States in April of 2015, I made the bold commitment, with $700 and a junky old car to my name to launch my photography business, Ashley Strong Photography full time. I spent my days in my parents spare bedroom, reaching out to everyone I knew, scanning the “Book of Lists” for nonprofits who needed a photographer, building my website, connecting with other photographers and entrepreneurs, attending seminars and classes and soaking up every bit of knowledge to be both a photographer and a business owner.
Little my little, my client base started to expand, my commitment to creating an intentional business started to grow and before I knew it, I was documenting weddings around the world, inspirational entrepreneurs in the town I grew up in, families expanding and every expression on love in-between. In 2018, I incorporated as Strong Smith, Inc. Since then, I’ve been humbled to expand every year since with growing my team, launching Wings of a Flower Print shop - an exclusive collection of prints from Costa Rica, South Africa and Tanzania, my education program for entrepreneurs and photographers all the while being a mama to the most inspirationally rad, unique, adventurous, loving little girl, a wife to a sincerely passionate South African immigrant fire fighter and growing roots in our mountain town.
Today, you can find my humble little family nestled in the mountains of Southern California. I spend my time documenting sincere love in all forms from engagements to weddings, from pregnancies to birth, from new businesses to celebrating monumental growth, educating other intentional entrepreneurs and photographers and sharing my passionate and raw reflections on raising a human, being a fire wife to a South African immigrant, growing roots in the mountains and rediscovering myself through each breath.
For years, photography was a “side hustle” something I did at nights and weekends after working my “responsible 9-5.” Then, one very loud and unforgettable day in 2012, a question came into my existence, shook me up and immediately changed every aspect of my life. “Am I really living or am I simply existing?” At that point in my life, I was simply existing.
I immediately brought to life a lifelong dream, teaching and living in Africa. I applied for and got accepted to teach English on Mafia Island, Tanzania with World Teach. There, I feel in love with myself, with life, with a sensationally sincere South African man, who is now my husband. Upon completing my teaching assignment, I came home and immediately got my TEFL and yoga certifications to teach around the world - which brought me to living and teaching in South Africa and Costa Rica. All the while I was falling in love in these exotic and inspirational places around the world, so too was my camera guiding my heart and encapsulating that which I was witnessing.
Upon returning to the States in April of 2015, I made the bold commitment, with $700 and a junky old car to my name to launch my photography business, Ashley Strong Photography full time. I spent my days in my parents spare bedroom, reaching out to everyone I knew, scanning the “Book of Lists” for nonprofits who needed a photographer, building my website, connecting with other photographers and entrepreneurs, attending seminars and classes and soaking up every bit of knowledge to be both a photographer and a business owner.
Little my little, my client base started to expand, my commitment to creating an intentional business started to grow and before I knew it, I was documenting weddings around the world, inspirational entrepreneurs in the town I grew up in, families expanding and every expression on love in-between. In 2018, I incorporated as Strong Smith, Inc. Since then, I’ve been humbled to expand every year since with growing my team, launching Wings of a Flower Print shop - an exclusive collection of prints from Costa Rica, South Africa and Tanzania, my education program for entrepreneurs and photographers all the while being a mama to the most inspirationally rad, unique, adventurous, loving little girl, a wife to a sincerely passionate South African immigrant fire fighter and growing roots in our mountain town.
Today, you can find my humble little family nestled in the mountains of Southern California. I spend my time documenting sincere love in all forms from engagements to weddings, from pregnancies to birth, from new businesses to celebrating monumental growth, educating other intentional entrepreneurs and photographers and sharing my passionate and raw reflections on raising a human, being a fire wife to a South African immigrant, growing roots in the mountains and rediscovering myself through each breath.
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2010 - Graduated from CSULB (California State University Long Beach) with a Major in Business Marketing and Minor in Africana Studies
2010 - 2012 Apprenticed under Brian at ABM Wedding Photography
2012 - 2015 Assisted / 2nd shot under Scott of Scott Nelson Photography
2012 - Got accepted by World Teach to teach English in Tanzania
2013 - Taught English in Tanzania, Africa where I met my now husband on a remote island, Mafia Island
2013 - Received my 200 hour Yoga Teaching Certification through Yoga Six
2013 - Received my TEFL certification to teach English around the world
2013 - 2016 Lead shot for Dove Weddings & Productions
2014 - Taught English in Costa Rica & Cape Town, South Africa
2015 - Launched Ashley Strong Photography full time
2015 - Got engaged at Creation Winery in Hermanus - Cape Town, South Africa
2016 - Documented my first out of state and country weddings
2016 - My now husbands K-1 fiance visa was approved after 3 years and he finally arrived in the United States
2017 - Married the man of my dreams in an intimate beach wedding
2018 - Hosted my first ever Cultural Art Show showcasing photographs from Tanzania and South Africa
2018 - Became a Corporation - Strong Smith, Inc.
2018 - Got pregnant with our daughter Orion
2019 - Gave birth to our incredible daughter Orion after 24 hours of an all natural labor
2020 - Survived two state wide shutdowns and a pandemic
2020 - Supported my husband going through and graduating fire academy with him now being a firefighter for Orange County
2021 - Launched my educational program
2021 - Bought our dream home in the San Bernardino Mountains
2021 - My husband became a citizen (after nearly 9 years of paperwork and processing) and a fire fighter for OCFA
2022 - Ashley Strong Photography was rebranded and became Ashley Strong Smith
To date :
Co-Authored a book, "In Her Shoes : Stronger Version of Me."
Featured in the woman's leadership magazine, "Behind Her Brand."
Documented over 500 sessions
Documented over a 100 weddings
Received over 260 FIVE STAR reviews on multiple platforms
Published nearly two dozen times
Received The Best Of Knot for 2019, 2021 & 2022
Received Wedding Wire’s Couple’s Choice Award 2017 - 2020
2010 - 2012 Apprenticed under Brian at ABM Wedding Photography
2012 - 2015 Assisted / 2nd shot under Scott of Scott Nelson Photography
2012 - Got accepted by World Teach to teach English in Tanzania
2013 - Taught English in Tanzania, Africa where I met my now husband on a remote island, Mafia Island
2013 - Received my 200 hour Yoga Teaching Certification through Yoga Six
2013 - Received my TEFL certification to teach English around the world
2013 - 2016 Lead shot for Dove Weddings & Productions
2014 - Taught English in Costa Rica & Cape Town, South Africa
2015 - Launched Ashley Strong Photography full time
2015 - Got engaged at Creation Winery in Hermanus - Cape Town, South Africa
2016 - Documented my first out of state and country weddings
2016 - My now husbands K-1 fiance visa was approved after 3 years and he finally arrived in the United States
2017 - Married the man of my dreams in an intimate beach wedding
2018 - Hosted my first ever Cultural Art Show showcasing photographs from Tanzania and South Africa
2018 - Became a Corporation - Strong Smith, Inc.
2018 - Got pregnant with our daughter Orion
2019 - Gave birth to our incredible daughter Orion after 24 hours of an all natural labor
2020 - Survived two state wide shutdowns and a pandemic
2020 - Supported my husband going through and graduating fire academy with him now being a firefighter for Orange County
2021 - Launched my educational program
2021 - Bought our dream home in the San Bernardino Mountains
2021 - My husband became a citizen (after nearly 9 years of paperwork and processing) and a fire fighter for OCFA
2022 - Ashley Strong Photography was rebranded and became Ashley Strong Smith
To date :
Co-Authored a book, "In Her Shoes : Stronger Version of Me."
Featured in the woman's leadership magazine, "Behind Her Brand."
Documented over 500 sessions
Documented over a 100 weddings
Received over 260 FIVE STAR reviews on multiple platforms
Published nearly two dozen times
Received The Best Of Knot for 2019, 2021 & 2022
Received Wedding Wire’s Couple’s Choice Award 2017 - 2020
