Whitefish woman builds life around passions for photography, music

Kathy Sullivan is at home on the banks of the Flathead River.

She’s watched the trees alongside its turquoise bends grow from saplings into giants. She’s seen countless rafts of visitors tumble over the rapids, overflowing with smiles. And she’s captured it all behind the lens of a camera for her business, Mountain Photography.

For 37 years, Sullivan has become the go-to photographer for local rafting companies and private boaters who frequent the Middle Fork.

And while the river has been both a source of joy and the backbone of her career, it’s also a spiritual place for Sullivan. She’ll cast her woes into the current for God, or whatever powers may be, to catch downstream.

“It’s really where my soul is comfortable,” she said. “I’ve been out there through losing very important people in my life …. Very important pets in my life. It seems like everything that’s happened to me since I moved to Whitefish, I’ve been mentored through by being out there on the river.”

Before Sullivan and the river got to know each other and her photography career took off, there was music. She sang in a folk band during college and married a musician while in grad school at Berkeley.

“As soon as we got married, we went on the road with his band. I was just kind of the wife and I’d keep the books and write the paychecks and stuff,” Sullivan recalled. “About a year into that, his manager had wanted him to have a girl in the show.”

Sullivan was the natural choice -- she was there and she had talent.

For the next 10 years, the couple lived life on the road, performing in night clubs and lounges from Las Vegas to the Florida Keys. It was during this phase of her life that Sullivan encountered Montana — and quite begrudgingly at first. Her manager wanted the band to play a show in Whitefish, but Sullivan could hardly find the place on a map.

“We kept turning the job down saying, we don't even know where it is,” she said. “Then our agent said the magic word to my husband: the fishing is incredible there, and that was all it took.”

The band headed west to play at the Viking Lodge, where The Lodge at Whitefish Lake is located now. Back then, it was one of few local venues that hosted entertainers from out of the area. Whitefish of the ’70s was much different than the town today — it was truly rural — only the primary roads through town were paved.

But Sullivan was hooked on the community and the nature surrounding it. So when she and her husband split, Sullivan decided to make Whitefish home. She established a life for herself, teaching skiing by day and singing by night.

In the off-season, Sullivan was back on the road, but this time as a solo act. She auditioned successfully for the National School Assemblies, which found talent to perform at schools around the country. For two years, she spent the off-season singing in 200 schools, plus a smattering of detention centers.

At one high-security prison in particular, she recalled feeling frightened as she watched the prisoners being led to their seats by security guards. There’s no way they’ll like what I do, she mused, looking out at her audience. Sullivan’s repertoire consisted of show tunes, light rock and covers by artists such as John Denver. After she took the stage, the show took an interesting turn. One of the inmates yelled out, “Do you do rap?”

“At that time rap was really new and I didn’t have a clue of how to even fake rap. I said, ‘Well not really, but why don’t you come up here and do it with me?’” Sullivan said. “His guard let him come up and then we got about four more guys up and they all started doing this rap. They said, ‘you just play rhythm.’”

And it worked. They performed and then in turn, listened to Sullivan’s songs.

“I got a standing ovation,” she recalled.

When she returned to Montana after the school tour, Sullivan found a new partner — and embarked on a new vocation. Her boyfriend started a ski photography business up on Big Mountain, complete with a photo lab, and Sullivan began taking photos, too. She then approached the local rafting companies about working with Mountain Photography and by the 1980s, Sullivan was the sole proprietor of the operation.

You can find her, or one of her crew members, stationed at the Bone Crusher rapids throughout the summer — rain or shine. The weather can be grueling at times, so she encourages her employees to work no more than four days in a stretch. But the rewards are plentiful. The act of shooting is the same, but each day behind the lens is different.

“It’s the same thing by title, but it’s not the same thing by experience,” Sullivan said. “I haven’t gotten over enjoying it yet ...when I stop enjoying it, then it’s time to move on.”

She and her team capture every single boat that passes by throughout the course of the day — she’s got contracts with the rafting companies and posts shots of private boaters on her website for purchase. The challenge comes in capturing a variety of shots in the mere seconds it takes for a raft to pass over the rapids.

“We have a strategy, we don’t just hold the shutter down and shoot a string of shots,” she explained. “The first picture they buy is the picture that shows their whole family — the second picture is the big splash.”

When the weather turns cold again, and the boats are stowed away for the season, Sullivan will return her focus to song.

“I’m just so lucky to have both of those worlds in my life — the music and the river. There’s been tragedy in my life, but there’s been more than my share of happiness,” Sullivan said.”I’ve had a great life. It could end tomorrow and I’d feel like there was nothing I missed.”

Reporter Mackenzie Reiss may be reached at 758-4433 or mreiss@dailyinterlake.com.