We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Madlom a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think it takes to be successful?

There is a lot in being successful.
My friend told once that Success is only when you make it big. When you are doing it on your own, when you have built the business, when you make an earning of any sort, when you buy that luxury item or vacation home…or WHEN (Fill in the blank) that is when you are successful.

But I disagree. Success is not a destination. It’s a journey.
I think being successful has more to do with being consistently successful in small little ways. You have to dig deep and plug away at doing the small things, sometimes mundane things to achieve little successes of each day which leads to bigger noticeable, celebratory successes. It’s not easy to see the small things as successes but if we only celebrate the big we lose sight of all that it took to get there. Yes those blood, sweat and tears moments in working on your goals. As your minutes will dictate your hours, that dictate your days that will fuel your months and make your year. So if you need to learn how to work you daily systems, so that your years because a year of success and growth.

There is a lot of Learning, Doing and Revising (LDR) in all the plans and systems one creates and changes as they build and grow. You learn from a starting point and each time you grow, you create a new starting foundation and your foundation gets stronger and taller as you go.

Success is truly the continual little success built over time!

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?

My name is Katie, the owner of Cattail Creek Creatives™. I am a photographer and videographer for portraits and branding of businesses. I photograph Seniors, family, pets and stylized sessions. I photo/video weddings as well as the branding of businesses whether it’s for food, products, services. Which can entail headshots, lifestyle shots, engaging photo and video of you in your element, product and food sets, basic and elaborately planned sessions.

I got started with drawing faces as a young kid. I loved the human experiences and emotions that are attached to memories and moments. Each time I went to visit my grandpa, he would give me used odd gifts. Many times it was of old cameras. Some times a tape recorder. Over the years I collected those cameras and things. When I left for collage, I took some drawing and painting classes and soon decided to take a photo class. I then found all my old cameras and display them to this day in my home and studio.
I fell in love with capturing people and things. As relationships of all kinds, from oneself to other people, from self to things, to the relationship to yourself, became such a pivotal part of my art and purpose. How one relates to the world around them differs from one person to the next. Our experiences shape us, our thoughts mold our experiences and interruptions of things are wrapped up from our past experiences and our natural way of seeing things. Leaving trails and footprints and impressions on others in some fashion or another. I want this same vision for each of my clients, both personal and business, to walk away with an experience and feeling that we captured them at their core, visually.

I do not just take photos and video. I collaborate with my clients to create something that is for them, with their vision and style. So I do not have ONE unique style that I offer. I make sure I create the images or videos to the tone and branding style, or personal style of their desires. Whether it’s light and airy, dark and moody, mixed, full of color, muted colors. Is your vision full of warmth and light or is it a bit of emotional and captivating. Is it fun and exciting, or is there some sentimental emotion you want to convey. What ever your vision is, I want to make sure we together execute it to your liking.

My goal is to help people create and capture their visions, their memories, their stories, their why, so they can share their story in their voice….through my lens.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I have always had a desire to open my own business, it went from a coffee shop to a coffee shop with an art gallery and studio, art supply store, with a dance studio in the basement. It was going to be this elaborately big business with many little businesses.

From the time I graduated from collage, I had to pivot a lot. I was stuck in odd jobs and things that didn’t serve my soul just to get by. I had wanted to go back to grad school to teach. I have always like the idea of teaching my skills and knowledge to empower others. But I ended up getting married, had a kid and a mom to a step kid, but soon sadly got divorced. My life’s plans became something in dreams.

I had bought my first DSLR right before getting divorced. So in 2011, a year after the divorces, I bit the bullet and opened my LLC “Madlom’s Fine Arts and Photography LLC”. Quite the long name. I dabbled in family and senior photos mostly. Was to anxious on doing weddings as a did a few and just wasn’t for me.

Being a single mom, I had little resources and time to really push the business, so I did it very part time. Doing what I could, while working full time jobs that just got me by. Balancing being a single mom and all things to my daughter and step kiddo. I worked out a lot to keep my body and soul from stressing so much.

In 2014 I decided to change my name to Cattail Creek Photography LLC (which is the current legal name). I had switched full time jobs to something that was better for me where I had summers off. But still was not making much with either full time job or my business. But some breakthrough in 2016, I started to really find my niche in senior photos and I could see things building fast.

In 2017 I was asked by a friend to do her wedding photos. I was unsure, but did and for the first time ever, I realized, I loved weddings. I loved the hope, the new beginnings, the start of a new family, the love, the relationship between them.

With the new added love of weddings, brought such a change in lighting that I had to pivot on how I used lighting. After all photography is really the chasing after the lights and shadows in the moment. I deep dove into better light skills.

In 2019, I quit working at the school system, and joined a marketing team, where I was the photographer mainly and did a few other odd jobs like social postings and website building/management. Learned a lot in the videography department. Adding new skills to my skill set. But 2020 closed those doors and I had to pivot gain, getting a part time job where I was able to practice a new skills of videography.

In 2021 Added the Cattail Creek Creatives™ trade mark name Once I added videography to my skills as I was doing more than photography.

10 years after I opened my doors, I was able to go full time with my passions and skills. It was not easy with all the hurdles and bumps. It taught me that to be resilient, meant always pivoting, learning, doing, and keeping a lot of patience in my life. Great things don’t come fast for all, sometimes it slow and steady. Mine was slow and steady. Despite all the hardships of income struggles, time struggles, being a single mom, working full time, staying on top of priorities, which was not always my business, staying healthy to do all the things (another passion of mine), I kept at it all. And now I own my own business, with little and big successes.

Met a great man, who I soon married, who believes in me enough that he built a studio for me on our property.

Dreams can come true, but it does not always happen immediately or on timeline schedule. Be patient while doing all the little things to keep staying successful. And don’t compare, your story is yours.

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

I feel this is part of my above story as well.

As my side hustle did become my business….

In 2011 I opened my LLC
In 2014 changed name
In 2021 I added a ™ name
In 2021 I went full time

Let me know if you wanted more here.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cattailcreekcreatives.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cattailcreekcreative_main
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cattailcreekcreative
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cattail-creek-creatives

Image Credits

I took them all.

Katie Madlom
Cattail Creek Creatives™