Cato held that position until 1950 when he became a photographer and assistant for Athol Shmith Pty Ltd. in the Rue de la Paix building at 125 Collins Street, Melbourne.

[7] He married Dawn Helen Cadwallader of Brighton at the register at St. Mary's Church of England, East Caulfield, in October that year.

Ltd.,[20] Worth Hosiery, Myer,[21] Hammersley Iron Pty Ltd,[22] The Australian Ballet,[23] Southern Cross Hotel[24] and General Motors, and his fashion photography[25] occupied full pages of newspapers and magazines.

Shortly after leaving his partnership with Athol Shmith, Cato began his teaching career and started to focus on fine art photography.

"[29] Cato used symbolism in his work, the consciously constructed image being an interest among 1970s photographers, young and experienced, including his colleague Paul Cox.

"[34] Cato's personal work was described as "a reflection of the psyche, not of light, that allows a consciousness to be present in the figuration of the photographic prints.

It is a vision that he traces back to the mythology of the Ancient Greeks, but it has interesting resonances, too, with the beliefs of the Australian aboriginals and the practice of their art.

Cato's use of musical analogies can be seen in the sequencing of Earth Song, described as using "melodic line and symphonic form as its metaphoric basis".

[29] In the 1982 assessment of Age critic Geoff Strong, Essay 2 is the "stuff of social comment" compared to other work, and focuses on "the sublimation of Aboriginal culture by Europeans".

This photo essay was published under the deliberately androgynous 'Everyman' names Pat Noone and Chris Noone, two identities that Cato created to "visualise alternative conditions within himself".

Each sequence, one monochrome single images and the other in full colour montages, explored how individual people can witness and experience the world very differently from each other.

"For the truth of the matter is that people have mixed feelings and confused opinions and are subject to contradictory expectations and outcomes, in every sphere of experience.

"[29] Cato began his teaching career in 1974 at Prahran College of Advanced Education[40] which became known as Melbourne's most innovative art school,[41] where he worked full-time.

[44] He described himself as being "duty bound" to share his experience with students and colleagues,[3][29] and they benefitted from his close knowledge of the history of Australian photography attained as he assisted his father in research for The Story of the Camera in Australia, and in meeting its protagonists.

[12][45] Many of Cato's past students have gone on to hold well regarded positions in the photography, art and education fields and as Deborah Ely notes "the department produced some of the country's most acclaimed practitioners",[42] including Bill Henson, Carol Jerrems,[46] Steve Lojewski, Rozalind Drummond, Janina Green, Andrew Chapman, Phil Quirk, Jacqueline Mitelman, Polly Borland, Susan Fereday, Robert Ashton, Peter Milne, Leonie Reisberg, Paul Torcello, Stephen Wickham, Kate Williams, daughter of artist Fred Williams, and Christopher Koller among others.

[53] Associate Professor Noel Hutchinson dedicated the Prahran Fine Art Graduate Show 1991 catalogue 'in memoriam' to Cato in recognition of his retirement.

In addition to Australian galleries, Cato's work is also held in collections in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and Schmidtbank Weiden in Germany.

But images here are nought to the words accompanying the photos: Unwisdomed knowledge Power unrestrained, these wean man from his mother's breast "Never to mention Farex" quipped McCaughey, who then critiqued...

These five mistake the modesty of the great photographers – Walker Evans, Cartier Bresson, Brassai, Stieglitz – for lack of ambition within the medium.

[63] Cato showed again at the Australian Centre for Photography in a group show Time Present and Time Past: Part II in 1984, and Mark Hinderaker, in The Sydney Morning Herald remarked that; "John Cato, Melbourne's master landscape photographer, is represented by two studies of natural form that at first glance seem reminiscent of Edward Weston: in one, tree branches emerge from water and a sandy bottom and, in the other, branches rise from Earth's cracked crust.

The social world is absent—except in the Mantracks series, where graffiti on rocks and debris on trees signify the disfiguring effects of an imported culture.

He finds perfect objective correlatives to his private inner states in the darkness and light, solidity ad softness, and infinite variety of pattern in tree trunks, clouds and rock faces.

"[30] Isobel Crombie, head photography curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, shared Cox's opinion and said "He was different in that he did not have the huge ego of some of his contemporaries.

"[68] Melissa Miles, writing in 2015 places Cato amongst John Kauffmann, Cecil Bostock, Olive Cotton, Max Dupain, Laurence Le Guay, Richard Waldendorp, David Moore and Grant Mudford who "together represent the broad sweep of abstraction from the steely industrial shapes associated with the straight style to the images aimed at capturing movement and the organic and unruly images derived from nature.

[98] Cato was honoured with numerous awards including Fellow at the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers (1991) and Honorary Doctor of Arts at RMIT University (1999).