We were lucky to catch up with Cassie Rae recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cassie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

One of the biggest things I’ve always cared about is making sure my portfolio is representative of ALL the people I work with.

My biggest mission is to make people see how amazing they look in the body they are in NOW. It’s so common for clients to say things like “can you take 30 lbs off” or “can you make me 10 years younger” and that’s just something I won’t do. I will work with them to come up with poses that help show off the best version of them as a human. I always want to show people how incredible they are even if they don’t see it at first.

I was never in front of the camera as a kid because I was just never comfortable looking at myself and it’s taken so long for me to work through that and helping others do the same thing is so fulfilling.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started off as a graphic designer out of highschool and I ended up with my first job in marketing at 19 completely by accident. Anyone who works at a small business in marketing knows that job comes with MANY responsibilities.

I somehow kept falling into a place where I ended up taking photos, doing social media work, and making graphics and ads for pretty much every company I’ve ever worked for.

After doing that for so long, I decided it was time to actually do the thing I loved doing…and properly become a photographer. I had taken a few classes in college. I grabbed my camera from then in 2019 and decided to start my portfolio building.

At the beginning of 2020 I properly became a buisness; that was quite a year to decide to open up, but come 2021 I was off and running.

I’m most known for working alternative and themed weddings, fantasy and fairy sessions, a moody editing style, and documentary style photography.

The clients who book me regularly are people who love my passion for working my marginalized groups, want to feel comfortable in their body, and people who love working with someone relaxing.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

At this point in my life, photography takes up about 50% of my work life and I honestly am so happy with where it is.

It started off as small side money and a way to make spending with something I enjoyed. Over time I began booking more larger gigs, more weddings, more events, and suddenly it was taking up more and more time.

Luckily I have been doing graphics independently for a while so it was an easy shift to spend more time on one and less on the other.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Just to be frank, I use fat people in marketing ALL THE TIME. As someone who is plus size themselves, it’s an integral part of who I am and who I serve as a buisness owner.

It’s paid off so well, the amount of times couples or clients who want headshots come to me saying “I could not find anyone who had someone who looks like me in their portfolio until I found you” it’s wild.

I will unapologetically feature people in my marketing that wouldn’t normally be shown by ALOT of other photographers and it’s been not only a breath of fresh air to find the clients that are right for me, it’s also been something that clients bring up all the time.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.cassieraedesign.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/cassieraedsgn
• Facebook: Facebook.com/cassieraedsgn
• Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/cassieraedsgn
• Twitter: Twitter.com/cassieraedsgn