By: Amy Stevens (2024 Summer Intern)
Kate Thornton photographing her daughters 5th grade Hollywood themed school dance
Sitting in morning sun at Charleston’s Highfalutin Coffee Roasters with professional
photographer Kate Thornton, I begin to get the picture. Kate is a collaborator and a helper. She
offers to let me interview her for my Trident Tech Visual Arts Business Procedures course
regarding the career path that led her to be a full-time creative. We sip coffee, bite into banana
bread, and I notice the calming energy she brings to a room. She laughs when I mention her
way of putting me at ease and says, “Oh, yes. I’m very laid back, but hyper-prepared.” For any
given shoot, Kate charges extra batteries. She carries extra cameras, lenses, and flashes. She
knows a session’s itinerary. “Because I’m so prepared for my shoots, I can then be at ease,
say…on the day of a wedding. I prepare so as not to project any hypertension on a special day.
I might say to a bride, ‘It’s okay that your dress ripped. It’s going to be fine and really isn’t a big
deal. Now it’ll be a part of your wedding story.’” Wedding stories aren’t the only visual stories
Kate tells. She also shoots for corporate clients and specializes in individual and family
portraiture, business portraiture, and lifestyle photography. Her commercial photography
business is called Kate Thornton Photography and her wedding and family portrait business is
called Captured by Kate.
When I ask about Kate’s story, I’m surprised to learn she first wanted to be an interior
designer. “I knew I was a highly visual person. I thought maybe I’d design the pretty window
displays at Nordstrom.” While she took some enjoyable photography classes at the College of
Charleston, the first real spark leading her to think about photography as a profession involved
a chance encounter at a concert. That’s when Kate and her friend met a guy
while recording dub tapes who told them, “Yeah, I was the official Grateful Dead photographer.
I traveled around with them for years.” Kate recalls being astounded upon receiving this
information. She thought, “Oh my gosh! That’s a JOB?”
This serendipitous meeting led Kate to adjust her own metaphorical sails. She changed
her course. Already on the College of Charleston’s sailing team, Kate had aspirations of
becoming a photographer who would document Olympic sailing. Like the guy she met at the
concert, Kate loved travel and action. She liked what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson
called “the decisive moment.” She tells me, “I knew I enjoyed people and documenting real,
authentic things.” When considering how this dream could inform her new choice of major at
CofC, Kate decided to become a journalism major within the Mass Media Communications
department. However, it was a CofC photography instructor, Michelle Van Parys, who told Kate
about the Maine Media Workshops and the Maine Media College, which provided a unique
program where Kate could take the sorts of photography classes she wanted after graduation.
The Maine Media workshops colored Kate’s world, so to speak, introducing her for the
first time to color photography. She mentions, “Up to that point, I’d only ever been in a black
and white photo lab. Digital wasn’t a thing.” Kate returned from Maine to Charleston knowing
she wanted to be a photographer. However, no one in Charleston was hiring at the time. But,
as fate would have it, a CofC sailing teammate from St. Thomas told Kate, “I can get you a job
as a wedding photographer and wedding videographer. Do you want to move to St. Thomas?”
Kate’s inner adventurer kicked in and she moved to St. Thomas with the goal of building up her
portfolio. At first, Kate didn’t want to photograph weddings. “That’s cheesy,” she thought. In
retrospect, she realizes, “It was a great experience. We would go on helicopters to islands. The
helicopter would drop us off with a wedding coordinator and officiant and then it would go
back and pick up the couple. I’d video them coming in. It was really cool!”
Not only did the theory that there’s six degrees of separation between everyone hold
true for me and Kate (Kate knows my Trident Tech advisor), but the world grew smaller when I
discovered she has a connection to Richmond,VA where my husband is from and where he
went to college at VCU. In VA, Kate landed a job with a daily newspaper called The Progress-
Index in Petersburg, VA. Newspapers were one of the first industries to use digital photography
and Kate was originally hired to scan film into a digital archive. Eventually, the paper became
so busy there was a need for Kate’s skills as a photographer and she turned her part-time
scanning position into a full-time photography position. Kate explains, “The work with the
newspaper became my graduate school, where I really learned to use my camera. That’s where I learned how to stop a ball in a dimly lit gym when the ball was being dribbled fast. I think we
were shooting with about a 4 megapixel camera. We’d shoot in jpeg, not even Raw. The
computers then were only used for typing and didn’t have much memory in them, so we had to
keep our images super small. And our images were being printed on newsprint.”
Charleston and its beaches were still printed on Kate’s heart. At 25 years old, she
returned to Charleston after working for the paper for two years, ready to begin her own
commercial photography business. In VA she was active with the American Society of Media
Photographers (ASMP) and assisted commercial photographers for extra money while working
at the paper. This is how she began to understand how commercial photographers make a
living. “I kinda fell into wedding photography,” Kate explains. “I was in to fashion. I was visual
and a girl perhaps even dreaming a little of my own wedding.” At that time, there were only
about 15 wedding photographers in Charleston and her office moved several times once she
began photographing numerous high end weddings…from 49 Archdale Street to Canon Street
next to Sugar Bake Shop. Later, she moved to 1600 Meeting Street. She began working from
home when virtual capabilities, Instagram, and online bookings meant not as many clients met
with photographers in person anymore. Still, however, Kate prefers to talk with her clients over
the phone and to meet with them in person. She explains, “Discussions are more effective
because they eliminate a lot of back and forth emails. Figuring out session details together
would be a lot to type and important things might be missed. I like to have conversations with
my clients.”
Our own conversation leads me to ask Kate about one of her great successes working
as a creative. She mentions she recently completed work for Guinness at The Dewberry. Then
her face lights up when she recalls first returning to Charleston from Virginia to seek a job. She
contacted the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA) to tell them about her
background in journalism and to seek out a position with the organization. Although the NPPA
didn’t offer Kate a job, they did give her name to the New York Times and Kate became a local
stringer for them for around 12-15 years. Kate completed about eight to ten assignments per
year and jokes, “I’m the reason why everyone from New York moved here, because I’d often
feature Charleston in my work for the New York Times.”
Indeed, Kate has an affinity for Charleston and commitment to her work that feels
contagious. She has chosen to raise her family in Charleston and she loves the way the city
and surrounding beaches provide her a variety of work. She remarks, “I think any business
coach would say you need to pick one thing and be known for that and that’s how you’re
successful. But project variety keeps me inspired and passionate about my craft.”
During our brief interview, stories of Kate’s history and of her craft swirl around us like
cream in coffee. I once again note her laid back demeanor and it’s easy to see why she has
grown a successful local business. She is incredibly personable, yet seems also to have the
patience of a sailor awaiting the perfect puff of wind. Clients who meet with her to discuss their
photography goals are sure to experience this same patience and to feel as I do as she kindly
offers her time to help me with my college project… I depart our interview feeling seen, heard,
guided, calm, listened to and inspired. Indeed, with her excellent communication skills,
expertise, and easygoing charm, it’s easy to see how her clients become happily “Captured by
Kate.”
