Ally Perkins - Roberts

Memphis Wedding Photographer & Documentarian

Time is cruel in the most beautiful way.

What remains a constant in your life is your love and the way you show it to the ones you hold onto fiercely. Over the course of 11 years, camera in hand, I’ve witnessed what it looks like to preserve emotion in a thousand different ways.

Young and wild-hearted, documenting life looked a lot like chasing a thrill. Once I truly understood how fast life could be taken away, it solidified what really stands a lifetime once it’s all said and done. I found this to be the photographs left behind from the ones that you love so dearly. Holding these photographs in your hands, you can hear the memories, feel the power in the lessons you’re reminded of, and can continue to pass these legacies down for an eternity. It is said that people only last for so long, but the ideas that flow from their spirit will live forever.

Real life is your legacy.

Life changes in the blink of an eye. One day it feels mundane, and the next you’re grasping for a memory hoping you’ll always remember what it feels like when your soul leaves your body when you’re looking into your loves eyes, what it smells like to embrace in one of those soul melting hugs, or what it sounds like when you’re tummy aches from laughing so hard with your favorite humans. As harsh as time may be, photographs will endlessly bring you right back to those feelings every single time. Memories are irreplaceable, photographs are priceless, and this is why I’ve dedicated my time on this earth to give you a piece of your time to hold dear forever. The weight of your life and what matters to you is what I want to place back into your hands so you may pass your legacy down for endless generations.

The middle of my photographic journey is a pivotal one. The last four years I dedicated my life as an RN kneeling by the bedside to be a rock for my patients in their darkest days. But all of the dark days were counteracted by a return to light in some way, shape or form. The stark contrast in what it looks like to live and to die has turned into a very real visual that remains at the fore front of my mind as I document the raw honesty in the life you’re living.

Mess is real, imperfections are what make you who you are, and the willingness to embrace and preserve these things is the fuel to my passion filled fire.

Moving forward into year 5, I’m pouring out every lesson learned at the bedside, from masking my emotions, to molding these precious seconds, minutes, hours into a tangible legacy clearly depicting what matters most when time is nearing an end- who you love and who loves you in return in the ways that make you exactly who you are through every single beautiful imperfection.