Story & Lesson Highlights with SHE SHEE Caitlyn Foley

SHE SHEE Caitlyn Foley shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

SHE SHEE, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
Starts with my constant hard work on building myself up from the bottom up. No connection, little help but I never gave up on my passion in photography as well as my brand store collection. No one see the hard work you put behind your business and self worth.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
She Shee (Caitlyn Foley) (b.1987) is an award winning & published American photographer + artist + outdoor brand photographer currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. My happiest days are spent traveling and experiencing landscape + nature with my loved ones. I’m a full time mother, entrepreneur, artist, creative outdoor brand photographer and Online retail store owner. Originally from the northeast, my move to Nashville created new opportunities to advance my career doing what I love. My days are often spent going on wild road trips & adventures outdoors- anywhere the lens takes me. I love to be adventurous with my fiancé & kiddos; road trips, travel, hiking, camping, and exploring the USA.

Way back I was drawn to the outdoors. As a little girl growing up, we traveled across America a few times. Throughout the years, I’ve learned to admire, explore, and appreciate our planet each day for how we see it. Fast forward to today, as an adventure creative outdoor brand photographer, my approach is to explore and help educate while connecting with my subjects through creative art, color, lighting, emotive visual storytelling, landscapes, and portraits. I aim to make you feel connected in the image, with the people, and our planet.

I started to continue my journey as an outdoor brand + content photographer & adventure fine art photographer with studies that began in mid 2000’s. Through my years traveling, camping and resonating with my family across the United States is an amazing experience with lots of memories exploring the outdoors. I always have my cameras in hand ready to explore with capturing epic landscape, portraits and extraordinary views.

The reasons why Im passionate and thrive for photography so much is to create powerful stunning images with my own personal development where we are able to see things in different perspectives while appreciating what the outdoors has to offer with helping others spread the love & learn to help work towards preserving our environment. I believe photography is a good way of teaching, connecting and understanding the importance of our planet & people.

As I discovered in middle school photography has always been my passion. I went on to earn a B.A. in Fine Arts & Design, Communication Design & Photography, Creative Courses, Workshops + Mentorship’s. She Shee Photography & Collection became a full time career in 2009 specializing in Freelance Creative Outdoor Brand + Adventure Content, Landscape & Portraiture Photographer as Master Editor in Photography. I won international awards ( 6X) I’ve been on front covers of magazines and been featured in magazines. I’ve been on blogs for my products for my online store for “best gift ideas for photographers.” Ive been featured on the Discovery channel from the 2023 outbreak tornado “In the storm of the eye – Nightmare before Christmas”, Ive been featured on hubs, websites and so much more to come! Throughout my younger years fashion has always been a passion of mine and always had a dream for a unique one of a kind line. I’ve decided to jump into my dream and create my online retail store with my own images. Ive collaborated with artists to help bring my photographs to life. My line of products can be found in my online store, www.SheSheeCollection/shop.com

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
One of my professors. I went to school for graphics designed and communication designed. We had a project due – the project was to create a magazine with all of our images, designs and how we would represent ourselves if we had the opportunity. Mine was a magazine filled with all my images I had at the time and was creating based off National Geographic. She originally thought I took all my photos off of google. Started to question me and was on the verge of giving me a zero and reporting me for plagiarism.. When I proved to her those were all my images she immediately said ” OMG, HOLD ON” “Please Caitlyn never give up, you have something here and I can see you on featured magazines and around the world” I told her I wanted to drop out of college. She insisted that was not a good idea for what I wanted to become to continue in my field and study to become a professional in my industry. She ran upstairs printed out this sheet that gave me over 200 + jobs I can potentially work or become through photography and not just graphic design.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Yes, dozens of times. Ive been in this industry for 19 + years all around. Ive been overlooked, told I was too professional , my work doesn’t fit the grid and constantly being turned down. I was always being compared to other photographers instead of people just seeing me and my work for who I am . I felt hopeless, defeated, tired, exhausted, I felt like my head was always hitting the wall. There was at least a few people through out my life that was always trying to sabotage my name or outshine me when they had opportunities too when opportunities were coming my way ( some will get word on the street and try to do this) . I was always so close in competitions but yet still far away from the finished line. There was times I cried every night asking myself ” What am I doing?” “Am I even on the right path”? “Do I even fit in with this industry?’ ” Will I ever make it?”. ” Is it even worth it anymore?” Should I waste anymore time since I wasted over a decade of people laughing at me and told me to go get a real job that I will never make it in this industry to move on, “What makes you special compare to other professionals?” This devastated me and crushed my spirit that I’ve been dreaming of since I was 14 years old. Every time I get ready to close my doors there always someone knocking on it saying ” Hi, we found you and we are interested in featuring you but never a solid income, just a featured.” I appreciate every opportunity I got and every cheerleader I gained, because without them and this I wouldn’t be still standing. But there was a time and the most recent one was a few months ago where I almost gave up, but I keep moving forward in hopes that one day this would all pay off like I dreamed of and I can continue on sharing my images across the globe even on my products ( my store collection line) where you can cherish them forever.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
The biggest lie to me would be that anyone can do it. Yes, anyone can do it but do they have the expertise? The experience? The background knowledge? The vision? Do they have the eye? Can they create anything out of everything? There’s more to this industry than just having a fancy camera, snapping images and getting people in front of your lens. There’s more connecting involved and art to be express. Photography to me is creating things that no one sees, feels or have a hard time replicating your work. This is how you stay separated from other photographers. Something that they can feel connected too, feel the movement, expressing the feeling where they never seen it before. I do feel that my industry misleads a lot of photographers vs. professional photographers. Ive been overlooked dozens of times and lost against a basic photograph that yes anyone can do, but can they really create fantastic photographs that no one has seen before? No hard feelings against anyone who enjoys photography and wants to become a professional I support you, I was once in your shoes. There will always be someone better than you out there, but I grew, continue on my education after college and studied every type of photography out there. Learned from the top leading photographers and created my own style. From what Ive seen and delt with in the past is the professional photographers are the ones that get overlooked anymore these days where they get their dreams demolished who then give up and a basic photographer flourishes where they now think they are professionals. When I went to college it was the opposite from this and covid has done serious wonders in this industry. This has always been a series of challenges for me and my business. Ive created a brand collection line to help spread my work even more to keep me separate from other photographers so everyone can see me for who I am and not just a photographer but a professional photographer who has flourished throughout her career. My brand line is all I have left in this industry now.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
The story I would love to tell people when I’m gone is my art work. The colors, the movement, the outstanding images, my store. I would love to leave an impact on the world after I’m gone where it can continue on. To keep expressing my images throughout and helping artist live their passion through success even after my departure. Having products that are one of a kind where I hope one day it will land in a museum and inspire photographers to never give up on your dreams. Keep learning and growing! This is for my family and future grandchildren now, my dreams are slowly passing by but my future is for my family. This is all I have left now and I hope this will live on after I’m long gone.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
All images are mine She Shee Photography & Collection. Product photos are stock photos from my line collection that were offer through my site.

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