Our Journey Began:

We were newly married, and both of us tended to be consumed by our work. The idea of Cattail Chronicles came into being as a means of allocating time on the weekends to be together, to do something together. Since we both enjoyed photography, “the something to do together” was obvious. We would spend some time on the weekends going out and photographing nature, landscapes, wildlife, or whatever we felt like. To add some spice to the adventure, we would record our activities along the way and create a video to post on YouTube. Cattail Chronicles was born. The name was derived from the pond behind our house and its surrounding cattails.We merged our hobbies. We didn’t care about viewers or followers. We were just having fun together. It did not take long to notice that our community of followers was growing faster than we were expecting. After all, this was a hobby, and we were doing it just for fun! Watching the number of our followers grow and some of our videos gain unexpectedly large numbers of views, we started to entertain the idea of pivoting the Cattail Chronicles channel from a hobby to a business.

First the stars:

Steve started his photography adventures with an old camera and a telescope in the north woods of Minnesota.  His original inspiration was the nighttime sky.  His journey would eventually take him to the Front Range of Colorado, where he expanded his photographic targets to include the landscape and wildlife of Colorado. For a time, he wandered away from photography, being distracted by his career, family, and bicycle riding in the mountains.  His first daughter reignited his passion for photography when she discovered that her mother’s cell phone could take photos.  The two made quite a team wandering the countryside snapping photos of whatever was around them.  As time went on, the daughter went to school and began her own journey through life.  By that time, though, another woman’s journey had crossed his.  She was also a photographer specializing in pet photography.  The two were soon married.  As the two paths merged, a common interest was discovered in photographing wildlife.  Both could now wander the beautiful and majestic landscape of Colorado together and more deeply appreciate the other’s perspective.  After a long series of discussions, they agreed to join forces and create Cattail Chronicles. 

  She was born with a camera in her hand:

Monique stole her first camera. Her sister wasn’t using it, and she needed it for her high school photography class. So began the lifelong calling to photography. As a professional pet and portrait photographer and videographer, Monique had always dabbled in learning wildlife and nature photography. When spring 2020 arrived and dried up client work, she pointed her camera out the back door. Spending hours photographing herons, osprey, bald eagles, and more, she eventually started a little Instagram account, Cattail Chronicles. The next year she spent months convincing Steve to start up a second YouTube channel. She already has a channel for pet and people photography business. He finally relented, and now she enjoyed photos and filming with her incredible sweetheart of a husband in the best place on the planet-Colorado. Since then, life has added some twists and turns.  In 2024 she leased a building that would become her ideal photography studio.  Her business Silver Paw Studio now confronted her with a whole new set of challenges.  As a result, she is in more of a supporting role for Cattail Chronicles.  She still loves going out with Steve on photography adventures and creating videos of them.  Just not as frequently.