Today we’d like to introduce you to Catie Ronquillo.
Hi Catie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I never planned to be a photographer, and I definitely never planned to run my own business. My first job out of college was as a marketing assistant at a textbook publishing company in California. Within a few weeks of watching my boss eat lunch at her desk every single day, I knew that wasn’t the life I was building toward.
Around that same time, I bought my first real camera. I was newly engaged and planning my own wedding, and I had stumbled into the world of modern wedding photography through blogs. It was 2008, before Instagram existed, and wedding blogs were everything. I remember thinking, completely delusionally, that I could do that. So I started emailing local photographers and asking if I could tag along and help. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I figured it out as I went.
I officially started my business after moving to Dallas in 2010. For a few years, weddings were my world. But my husband worked a traditional Monday through Friday schedule, and I was shooting every weekend. That wasn’t sustainable for us, so I pivoted to high school senior portraits. I loved the one-on-one work, but marketing to both teenagers and their parents at the same time started to wear on me creatively.
Then life shifted things again. My son was born in 2018, and I spent his first year home with him. That pause gave me a lot of clarity about what I actually wanted. When I was ready to get back to work, I found brand photography, and everything clicked. It combined the storytelling of weddings, the personal connection of senior work, and the marketing strategy I’d always been drawn to. Then 2020 arrived, a pandemic and a newborn daughter, and somehow the business kept going, because by then I had built it around my life instead of the other way around.
Since 2019, I’ve specialized in brand photography, working with established women entrepreneurs and founders who are stepping into their next level of business and need a brand presence that reflects who they’ve actually become. I’ve photographed 100-plus founders across 17-plus industries, traveled to cities from San Francisco to Nashville to Los Angeles for sessions, and spent 15 years learning that the best thing you can bring to your business is the most honest version of yourself. That’s what I help my clients do, and it’s what I try to do every day too.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh the challenges and struggles! Of course. As with any business, it’s never a smooth and straight path. I ran into imposter syndrome, financial challenges, and weighing the cost of taking risks. But, there’s no playbook for running a business. Sure, there are recommendations and suggestions, but every single business is going to be built in its own way, particularly a creative business. You could try and follow someone else’s path exactly, and it still may not work out in the way you expect. That’s why it’s important to listen to you intuition and your gut when it comes to things that really depend on you for the business.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a brand photographer and marketing strategist based in the Dallas area, specializing in personal brand photography for established women entrepreneurs and founders. What that means in practice is that I don’t just show up with a camera. I show up with a strategy. Before every session, we get clear on who you are at this level of your business, who you’re trying to attract, and what every single image needs to communicate. The photos come last. That’s what sets me apart from most photographers, and it’s why my clients walk away with a content library that actually works rather than a gallery of beautiful images that sit unused.
What I’m most proud of is the before and after. Not the photos themselves, but the shift in how my clients carry themselves after we’ve done this work together. I’ve had clients raise their rates immediately after a session because their brand finally matched their expertise. I’ve had clients launch new offers and sell out because their visuals gave them the confidence to show up consistently online. One client grew her income fivefold in the year following her rebrand. Those outcomes aren’t accidents. They happen because we treated the photography as a business tool, not a vanity project.
The thing that truly sets me apart is 15 years of lived experience building a personal brand in a crowded market, combined with a background in marketing that most photographers simply don’t have. I understand what your audience needs to see, not just what looks good. And because I’ve run my own business through three pivots, a pandemic, and two kids, I bring a level of real-world perspective to this work that goes beyond the shoot itself. My clients don’t just get photos. They get a clearer sense of who they are and how to show up for the business they’re building.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I spent a couple of years living in France when my dad’s job got moved there in the 80s. And I think that changed my perspective on so many things. In high school, I was the overachieving nerd. I used to be a member of the Quiz Bowl team and I graduated second in my class (I was soooo close to being Valedictorian). I definitely felt like I didn’t know much pop culture at the time. I was in ballet and took piano lessons. My parents took us to see musicals, which I have a deep love and appreciation for. But please don’t ask me who sang what popular song, because I likely have no idea. I’ve always had a deep interest in learning more about the history and background of events and things, though I never took an interest in things like political science. I never took a business course in college because quite frankly, they sounded boring and I never had being a business owner on my radar back then. I just knew that I wanted to build a life that I enjoyed, and that didn’t mean working around the clock. My time in France taught me “Joie de Vivre” – the joy of living and it’s been my compass ever since.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.catieronquillo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catieronquillo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catieronquillophoto
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catieronquillo
Image Credits
Headshot by Sophie K Hunter Photography
All other photos by Catie Ronquillo Photography
