Meet Kathy
Thirty-three years ago I moved to my dreamland ... Whitefish, Montana.
I first came to Whitefish in the early 1970's as a traveling professional singer to perform with my husband at a resort here called the Viking Lodge, where the Whitefish Lake Lodge now stands. We had a lounge show act called Keel & Sullivan. We both fell in love with the area and camer here year after year to perform and vacation. Then as things sometimes happen, we and our singing act split up in the fall of 1977. That is when I made the decission to move here permanently. I've been here ever since.
To survive alone in Whitefish I spent my first winter teaching skiing at our local ski resort, Big Mountain Ski Resort (recently renamed Whitefish Mountain Resort) in the daytime and at night, performed as a solo act singing and playing guitar in one of resort nightclubs.
In 1981 I turned a life-long hobby, photography, into a new profession and thus began MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY, an 'on the slopes' photography service at the resort. I continued to sing in nightclubs on the Mountain and around our valley for many years to follow, but gradually MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY consumed more and more of my time and my music had to take a back seat. In the summers, beginning in 1983, I contracted my photography business to the whitewater rafting companies in Glacier National Park. Presently, my crew and I continue to do the commercial whitewater photography for Glacier Raft, Montana Raft and Wild River Raft companies on the Middle Fork of the Flathead river there in the Park. We also shoot photos of all the private boaters that float by us every day at a sometimes not so gentle little rapid called 'Bone Crusher'.
I never thought anything could equal my passion for music, but happily photography has done just that. For the next 26 years I owned and operated MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY, headquarted in the ski resort village and added to it a resortwear/gift shop that I called 'Crazy Bear & Company'. In the fall of 2007 I sold the ski resort portion of my business to a long time employee of mine, Kat Gebauer which she now calls Big Mountain Photography (not to be confused with my business which I continue to call KATHY SULLIVAN'S MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY.
Presently, as I re-invent my photography career apart from the ski resort business and minus the chore of managing 10 to 14 employees, I am finding my passion for photography becoming even more intense and more fun than ever. I not only have more time to enjoy being the 'eye' behind the camera, but I am also having fun cultivating new skills such as Photoshop restoration and editing projects, teaching digital camera workshops, restoring old home movie film to DVD and most fun of all, selling my own photographic art. Happily, music and singing professionally is even finding it's way back into my life!
I can truly say ... 'Now, I have the best of ALL MY WORLDS!!!'
