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Meet Trailblazer Kate Merrill

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Merrill.

Kate, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I got started in wedding photography right out of college. I finished my art degree and was confronted by a big, scary world where no one wanted to buy photography student work at galleries, so I started scrolling through Craigslist for a job that would still be related to photography. I found a wedding photography internship with a local company, took it and fell in love with photographing weddings on my first day. Weddings are so important to people, and I have a healthy dose of paranoia, so I didn’t feel comfortable branching out on my own until I had photographed more weddings than many photographers do in their whole career (over 200). I worked three years of 50+ weddings to get there, and really dove into the deep end. I learned fast and picked up some hard lessons along the way. But, all of that meant that by the time I started my own business, I knew how I wanted to run things.

I planned my own wedding during that time, at which point I realized how frustratingly opaque the wedding industry is. I was appalled at the number of vendors who would add fees/rentals/surprise contract clauses at the last moment, weren’t transparent, and didn’t approach the whole client experience with the love that the whole industry is supposed to be based around.

When I kicked off my own business, my focus was honesty, transparent business practices, and loving acceptance of all kinds of weddings and all kinds of people. Since then, I have narrowed my focus more, and I now specialize in working with a lot of couples who are having weddings that are out-of-the-box in some way, or who live a more “alternative” lifestyle. Both those categories of people have a hard time finding something that is geared towards them in the wedding industry, and since I relate to both, that niche works well for me. I’m also Bisexual, so being an LGBTQIA+ welcoming business is very important to me. I’ve become more involved in the queer community as a wedding photographer than I ever was in college or high school, and that has been a really special and surprising joy as I’ve grown my business.

I’ve worked weddings full time for five years now, with a tally of over 350 weddings, and am still going strong. Every year just gets better and better. I can’t wait for whatever comes my way next.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Certainly not. But, are there any jobs that are? I have definitely experienced many of the other challenges that I believe are common to young entrepreneurs: identity crises (multiple), the struggle of putting your creative passion on the line as your job, work/life balance, stress management, and finding myself and my real deep down “WHY” for what I am pursuing. Fortunately, after going through all of that, I can confidently say that this is what I’m meant to be doing right now, and every moment of struggle leading up to today was worth it.

My advice to anyone going down this road would be to follow your gut and your intuition. If you think a common business practice/piece of advice someone else gave you or a client is wrong, don’t just sit there and take it. Say what you believe and don’t be afraid to do things differently if it’s the right way to do it. As women, we are trained to stay quiet and take what is dished out, but going down the road of starting your own business means you have to break out of that mold and find a strong sense of self to guide your decision making.

Also, if you’re 100% miserable and don’t like what you are doing, or what your business has become, don’t be afraid to tear it to the ground and start over. The “sunk cost fallacy” is very real in the entrepreneurial space and I have seen many peers who are working themselves to death doing something they hate because it’s the business they started and they don’t want to “fail.” It isn’t a journey for everyone, and if I could be happy working 9-5 in an office, I would SO do that over running my own business. But, I’m not. I believe deep down, we should all do something that sets our souls on fire.

What do you do? What do you specialize in?
I’m a wedding photographer and I specialize in working with anyone who is passionate about doing things differently. I work with a lot of queer couples, non-conforming couples, and people having weddings that other people don’t understand. I’m very photojournalistic in the way that I photograph weddings, and one of my clients described my work as “artsy without being inaccessible.” Because of my art degree background, I can’t help but try to push the envelope and do something really creative at every wedding.

Over the years, my clientele has self-selected down to really caring, authentic, and artistic people who just want to throw a party where everyone will have a good time. It’s a breath of fresh air in comparison to the unhealthy attitude that I think the traditional wedding industry can breed in people.

I guess that belief sets me apart from others pretty strongly. I think potential clients landing on the front page of my website get that pretty quickly, and by the time I’m getting emails from people, they know we are on the same page and that I will be an advocate for them to make decisions that will make them happy.

We’re interested to hear your thoughts on female leadership – in particular, what do you feel are the biggest barriers or obstacles?
I think it’s an issue everywhere and in every industry, but we have been beaten down by society so often that we rarely have the confidence to stand up for ourselves, what’s right, and how we should be treated. I hear so much language from my friends and peers on a daily basis that shows how little we think of ourselves as women. To change this, we have to shift what we believe about ourselves deep down in our core. Stop bringing down other women (especially trans women, seriously??), stop bashing yourself, believe in what you can achieve, and push boundaries. Society has to shift as a whole and it‘s everyone’s responsibility (including men and non-binary folks) to bring about equality for everyone. None of us are better than the lowest group of people that we marginalize.

Pricing:

  • Wedding Photography is $425/hour–all my packages are a-la-carte and built custom for every client.
  • Engagement Photography starts at $450 for a one-hour session.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
headshot is Sarah Fosco Photography–all others are my own images.

Getting in touch: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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