“I definitely realized early on I wanted to work for myself. I didn’t want to work for others. I had my own vision of how I wanted to shoot. I felt I had enough business acumen to do it as well from a business point of view.”
–Cate Brown, professional photographer On her photography journey
In our latest four-part interview series we speak with professional photographer Cate Brown who shares extremely useful insights from her career as a commercial lifestyle photographer, including marketing, communication, and network tips. Read on for more.
Cate Brown is a New England–based commercial lifestyle photographer who captures genuine moments of life outdoors and by the sea. Specializing in lifestyle, marine, adventure, and travel imagery, with niches in surf, sail, yacht, swim, and oceanic fine art, Cate partners with brands to deliver premium, timeless, and authentic visual storytelling.
Text below transcribed from a portion of an interview conducted by Betty of Cradoc fotoSoftware in October 2025. To view this and other interviews, please go to our Cradoc fotoSoftware YouTube Channel.
Photography Background
My name is Cate Brown. I’m a photographer in Rhode Island up in the Northeast.
I’ve been shooting professionally for over 10 years now. I graduated with a degree in photography as well. Growing up in Rhode Island, we are known as the ocean state,
so I went to school in Massachusetts in the middle of the state, and I knew it was too far from the water. So immediately upon graduation, I brought my new degree and skill sets back to my ocean community, and I built my portfolio and my work from there. So I currently focus on outdoor lifestyle with a specialty in marine-based shooting, so on and around the water for a number of lifestyle scenes. That’s primarily my commercial work, but I also do oceanic fine art as well.
I do a little bit of a lot. I do a little bit of editorial for a lot of the local or regional magazines here, whether they need a small assignment or some stock. I do online stock sales through a few partners, very select partners that value premium and quality work. And then the biggest projects are always going to be commercials. And I really do enjoy shooting commercial brand work, so that is really the bulk of my work, too.
I went to Fitchburg State, which is a BS, so bachelor of science, not a bachelor of art, so it was a little unique in that regard. We did a lot of theory of communication. We did a lot of different mediums. We didn’t even touch digital until junior year. So there was studio, there was darkroom. Lightroom was just coming out my senior year. I remember that. So we did learn a lot of Photoshop and Bridge.
I was lucky having come from classes in high school as well. Not everyone has the opportunity to take classes on photography in high school, both traditional medium and digital. So upon graduating, I immediately realized they did a great job technically training me in a lot of different ways. But I didn’t have the best sense of exactly what I wanted to shoot or how to go about being a small business. I did a lot of assisting for other photographers. We had a required internship as part of the program.
I was very lucky to join ASMP, the American Society of Media Photographers, that does wonderful work advocating and helping promote education as an industry group for photographers primarily. And I got a lot of wonderful connections from there and more real world experience of what it’s like to be on a set, what it’s like to deal with a bunch of equipment or a lot of moving parts or even just how to communicate with clients. A lot of that, like how to invoice, like I didn’t even know what an invoice looked like when I was still in school.
A lot of those business aspects I got immediately after graduating, so it was kind of like forcing myself to continue learning, basically. But it definitely paid off and I definitely realized early on I wanted to work for myself. I didn’t want to work for others. I had my own vision of how I wanted to shoot; I felt I had enough business acumen to do it as well from a business point of view.
I think a lot of people are very skilled creatively or skilled business wise. It’s hard to find people who are well balanced in both in order to succeed long term. But I wanted the challenge and it’s been over 10 years now, so I’d like to think it’s going okay.
I’m outdoor lifestyle based and this sector is becoming more and more saturated too, with adventure travel and whatnot. The digital age with cameras has really democratized the technology for a lot of people and made it very accessible, so it’s about finding what you bring uniquely to the table.
And it’s challenging, but I think a lot of people don’t realize how little time I actually spend shooting, like how much of my time is being taken up with the accounting and hunting down invoices, and who still owes a bill, or pitching, like the amount of pitching that I’m doing or cold emailing that I’m doing in email marketing. A little bit of social media marketing, too.
I am mostly just myself. I don’t have any other full time employees. I bring on assistance on an as-needed basis. I don’t have any full time assistance, so it’s really just me. And then shooting takes up this very small portion of my time. And the rest of that is processing it and editing it and delivering it and then finding the next gig. And I heard once that being self-employed, especially as a creative, is basically being full time unemployed, constantly hustling. You know, that’s not untrue at times, but when it gets rolling, things tend to come in waves and then things get really busy really fast, too.
I just had a gig this week that was a couple of months in production and just creative planning. We had done it early and then just took a while for the weather to kind of catch up to us so we could actually shoot it.
And two weeks ago, I was like, oh, I don’t have a whole lot on the rest of the calendar for the next couple of weeks. But literally, as I’m driving to this shoot, I get three more inquiries, some from past contacts and some from a couple of new ones looking to shoot projects. So it really just kind of all comes in at once.
It’s like, oh, now I’m suddenly very busy. And especially with my work being outdoor based and seasonal in the northeast, we have a lot of seasons. I really have to plan for a very heavy shooting season in the summer and fall months. Can I line up a project for a winter scene? Will the weather cooperate for that? Because we don’t get snow regularly, we’re too coastal. And then I just plan a lot of my marketing and business planning for the winter because I won’t be shooting quite as much.
So aside from the regular ups and downs, I have these seasonal ups and downs to contend with, too. So it’s an added barrier at times.
The Photographer’s Journey
Every photography journey is unique and that uniqueness gives new insights. Here are some short snippets s about their own photography journey. For more reading read another of our blogs about one of our interviewees – Scott Dworkin – whose photography journey started with Air Force dreams.
About Cate Brown
Cate Brown is a New England–based commercial lifestyle photographer capturing genuine moments of life outdoors and by the sea. Her work spans lifestyle, marine, adventure, and travel imagery, with niches in surf, sail, yacht, swim, and oceanic fine art. She partners with brands to deliver premium, timeless, and authentic visual storytelling.
Website: https://www.catebrownphoto.com/
