I realised that it had been a hot-sec since I’d introduced myself.
Not really sure I’ve ever committed to a formal introduction actually. I’ve only been a photographer for well over 15 years, so there is no need to rush these things. (sarcasm)
I recently popped together a little reel on good-ole Instagram – you know the one, where there is basic info about the person and they are waving happily at the camera. The things we do hey?
But I thought “why not go into a bit more detail?”, given it was actually pretty hard to find a few short sentences to write about “me” for the purposes of a 2 second reel.
So here I am “hi”!
I’m Kate, I’m the creative behind Kate & Co Family Photographers here in Adelaide, South Australia.
I’ve been a photographer for well over 15 years, I first picked up my camera when my own babies were born and absolutely fell in love to the ability to stop time, tell stories, play with light and emotion.
I was hooked.
Turned out I was ok at it too, and soon friends of friends asked me to take their family portraits and it just grew from there. I estimate I’ve photographed well over 1000 newborns, many many weddings and produced millions upon millions of photographs!
I had three babies within 3.5 years of each other, so my journey with motherhood has been pretty hectic.
Definitely not for the faint hearted, I felt like raising small kids was an absolute whirlwind of chaos, tears (theirs and mine) and sleepless nights.
Slowly though, they began to sleep through the night, started school and my business grew along side them.
When my eldest kiddo, Morgan, was 10, she was formally diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder)
Back then it was called Aspergers, but it has now been incorporated under the ASD banner. The years leading up to diagnosis were incredibly challenging. She basically didn’t sleep for her first 10 years, and this fact, along with some pretty challenging behaviour, was our motivator to head to the paediatrician (and then a million other specialists from there) – I literally had not slept for more than about 3 hours straight for 10 years … so yeah … it was pretty rough.
Her diagnosis came as a relief to my husband and I. I know it doesn’t for everyone but for us it gave us information we needed to help her (and us) manage her (and our) behaviour and gave us strategies to get the most out of every day.
It also meant that when people looked at us as “those parents” (you know, the ones with the kid who is being noisy, bossy, impatient, loud and, on a few too many occasions, violent 🙁 ) we no longer blamed ourselves or our presumed “bad” parenting. We saw it as our child trying to communicate a need, that we could then attend to in a different style than we were prior to her diagnosis.
Morgan attended mainstream schooling until year 8 when we made the decision to enrol her in an awesome online school called Open Access College. We are blessed here in South Australia that the campus for OAC is right here in Adelaide, so even though she was studying from home in a 100% ‘virtual’ environment, it still felt like school was ‘just around the corner’.
Of course, then, a global pandemic came and lots of kids then experienced online education, but Morgan was already there and excelling at it and it was a walk in the park for her. She loved every minute of OAC and finished her SACE certificate in the same year as her age-peers – which, when she was younger, we believed wasn’t ever going to happen.
Morgan is now a fabulous 20 year old Arts Student studying at one of Australia’s best visual arts Universities and is loving every second of it. She’s so incredibly talented and we are forever incredibly proud of her achievements.
In amongst all that, we also have Max, who is now 18 and working as an apprentice carpenter (and loving no longer being at school!), and our youngest daughter, Iliana, who is currently in year 11. These two brilliant humans need a whole blog post o themselves too, but for now, I’ll start wrapping it up.
Whilst life feels like it’s slowed down from the chaos of small children, it’s still very very busy!
Alongside raising three busy humans, Kate & Co Family Photographers is my ‘other baby’ … one that never really grows up!
Over the last 15 years I’ve achieved my Masters in Photography with the AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photographers) been awarded SA Family Photographer of the Year, SA Newborn Photographer of the Year runner up, and SA Wedding Photographer of the year. I’ve also been a finalist in the Telstra Business Awards and have spoken at industry events and been interviewed for the PPBN (Professional Photographers Business Network).
Phew. No wonder I’m tired.
I’m also a wife to my amazing husband, Tim who I married when I was barely 20! We’ve been married for 25 years and going strong (yikes!)
Oh and I have a Golden Retriever called Elliot and he is the love of my life (shhhh don’t tell Tim).
Well that’s it in a nutshell really.
I’m so incredibly honoured to do what I do every single day. I feel like I could waffle on and on, but for now, that will do.
Well done if you got this far 🙂
Big love,
Kate
