ABOUT ME

Cato & Pade is owned by Gavin Cato, with a select few photographers assisting.

I started doing wedding photography around 5 years ago. I was prompted to do it by the poor results some people close to me had at their wedding. At the time I was already working on modeling photography - but when the chance came up to shoot a wedding for a couple of friends I grabbed it with both hands and began getting a bunch of referrals, and it went from there.

Since then with near 200 weddings under my belt I’ve found something which I really love doing. Every wedding is a total blast, and I love capturing the moments and giving the couples something they treasure life long. It’s a real pleasure when your job is what you love doing. I also love designing albums with couples after the weddings, it’s great fun seeing the reactions to all the pictures.

I’m based in Sydney, just south of Sutherland Shire in Helensburgh (about 50mins from the Sydney CBD). I do travel all around NSW though and pretty much every weekend I’ll be traveling west/north or into the city. As mentioned on other pages on this website, there are generally no travel fees for around Sydney, it’s just part of life living where I do! (This is my most common question which is why I mention it a few times).

What does the company name mean? Initially when starting doing weddings I joined with a friend called Andrew Pade - hence the name Cato & Pade. Since then Andrew has had a couple of kids and so wanted to scale back a little bit, which is when I threw myself full time into wedding photography.

Andrew is still around though and we have great fun together when we do a double photographer wedding. Sometimes in late 08/early 09 I will be migrating the company name over to something more related to just my name, however as it’s just a cosmetic thing it’s not high on my list at the moment, I’d rather be shooting!

Me pictured above with the lovely Emma at her wedding which I shot in the first half of 2008.

AS YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

As your Photographer I will make a commitment to you that I will treat you as if you were my only client. I will never be too busy to take your phone call, and if I happen to not be around when you call I’ll call you back the moment I get the message. You can email or call me anytime, and as during the week I’m nearly always on the computer editing photos, you’ll often get back a reply in under 1 hour, and sometimes 5mins!

Building a relationship with couples is part of the job I love most, and is essential to connect with people for on their wedding day.

We will always meet up again before the wedding day to discuss the day, and work out what sort of photographs you love, and any you don’t! I’ll be completely prepared on your wedding day.

On your wedding day I’ll turn up much earlier than I need to (there’s nothing worse than being in a mad rush!) and keep myself busy with candids and detail shots until we are ready to get rolling. I’ll also stay until all the activities are finished well into the night.

Weddings are such a monumental event that I don’t think it does justice by only being there for a few hours, hence all my package offerings include full all day coverage. They also all include the full resolution digital negatives - they are your photos, so why should you pay extra to get them!?

THINGS I WON’T DO

What I won’t do to you ;

1. • I won’t hide the pricing on my website then try and do the big sell on you when we meet
   

2. • I won’t pre-build a higher end album for after the day, only to tell you it costs <insert huge figure>
   

3. • I won’t charge you extra for your negatives
   

4. • I won’t have any hidden pricing or catches in any packages
   

5. • I won’t have draconian style contracts with a million conditions in them
   

6. • I won’t take months upon months to have your photos ready (typically ready in 3-4 weeks)
   

7. • I won’t use cheap equipment to shoot your wedding with
   

8. • I won’t force you to listen to crummy cheesy background music every time you visit my website
   

I’M A GEAR HEAD!

I am unashamedly a self confessed gear head. I love photography, and I love photography gear and computer gear. Accordingly the equipment I use is literally the best money can buy, and is ridiculously overkill for shooting weddings and definitely better than what most other photographers use, but thats fine by me!

With a background as a computer engineer, my computer equipment where your photos are stored is incredibly redundant, with backups of backups of backups, and also with photos backed up in a different location! Your photos are as safe as bricks.

The camera gear I use (this may only be of interest to the fellow gearheads!) is currently 2 x 21 megapixel Canon 1Ds MKIII digital SLR’s (which are unbelievably good) and a crazy amount of lenses which require a pretty serious bag to carry them all in! They are 15mm/2.8, 16-35mm/2.8, 24mm/1.4, 35mm/1.4, 50mm/1.2, 85mm/1.2, 135mm/2, 70-200/2.8 IS, & finlly the lovely yet huge 200mm/1.8. And a stack of lighting gear as well. The lighting is 3 x 580ex flashes, some Frezzi lights & other bits and pieces.

You will no doubt see some comments elsewhere the gear doesn’t matter - ignore it, it’s complete nonsense! The level of camera gear (specifically the lenses) is pivotal to the quality of the final photo. It doesn’t matter how great the moment captured is, if the photo is blurry!