Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ken Ozuna. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ken, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a chef. I knew I had the passion and drive to be good at it but before I could commit to culinary school, I fell in love with image capture and had to chose. Working in kitchens and then transitioning to working as a full time photographer has shown me that I made the right choice.

Ken, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a photographer and cinematographer but I prefer to just say I work in image capture. I work in the greater Chicagoland area and it’s been an enormous privilege to be able to make even a small living with a camera and tell stories. I work in a lot of fields, primarily in food and editorial, but I also do family photos and personal photos depending on the project. The aesthetic I try to bring to each shoot and photo is very emotional, as cheesy as it might seem. I always want to capture an authentic human moment regardless of my subject, and I hope you will join me on this adventure!

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I’d say there isn’t much criticism I can levy at NFTs or AI that isn’t sad by much smarter people. I think as we evolve our digital spaces, we need to start having broader legal conversations about art and copyright laws to protect artists from nefarious actors, while also encouraging the growing technology to aid us in an ethical, non-destructive way.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Understand the value of art. Times are lean for everyone except a very select few, and as we come down to the wire, many people don’t have the money to spend on photoshoots, commercial projects, or even commissioning artists. This leads to artists becoming increasingly lax about their principles and passions to try to appeal to as broad of people as possible. We can’t fix the economy, however there is also this attitude that we aren’t essential.

In the digital age, photographers have huge competition in a struggling economy against newer phones that have pretty good chips and sensors. There’s this fallacy of thinking when you hire a photographer, you’re really just paying for their equipment, but that’s not the case: you’re paying for our eye, our taste, and our expertise. When I see businesses with shoddy food photography blown up so much that it’s difficult to distinguish what’s even in the dish, I feel profound sadness because those photos can absolutely signal struggle in a business, and can drive away customers, and because times are lean, photographers will charge them quite a bit instead of working within their budgets to guarantee that everyone wins and they have repeat business because we photographers must eat as well. I think this is a toxic cycle, and understanding the value of good photography, in conjunction for recognizing when a photographer is passionate about your project and wants to help you and also wants security, we can all benefit from rising tides. Compassion is key.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kenozunadp/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-ozuna-028b57167

Image Credits
All of the photos are owned taken by me.