We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karen Loza. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karen below.

Karen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

I’ve been a photographer since I was 19 years old. When I got married and moved to a different city, I thought it would be easy to continue doing normal business as a portrait photographer, but it was hard, even though I wasn’t that far from my original city. For a couple of years, I realized that I was not going to be a photographer full-time, and ill just keep doing it for my mental health. I opened a jewelry boutique and I would just stick with it for a couple of years.
I opened my boutique in September 2019 and by march 2020 I had to close it due to the pandemic, while pregnant and bored at home, I used to spend the time cooking and photographing my meals, Quickly became an obsession and a new passion grew inside me.
One day I posted an Instagram story ” Hey guys,I’d like to support small businesses during these difficult times, I’ll be photographing 10 businesses for free, DM me if you’re interested in having new photos for your business!

Little did I know, a bunch of DMs started to come in, and when I posted the photos, even more businesses were interested in my services.

When I first started, I just “knew” I had to have affordable prices because my main goal was to be known as THE food photographer in my area. I practiced every day and learned new techniques. With a tiny space in my home, I started my home food studio. Polishing my technique and working on myself as an entrepreneur, I scaled, and from that “low rate” and a couple of photo sessions I used to have, now I’m fully booked with real loyal clients.

Now 5 years later I keep doing it in my very own food studio, where I designed a beautiful kitchen for my food prep and YouTube channel where I teach other photographers about food photography and the content creation world.

I can cook in my studio and design amazing food sets for my clients, I’ve worked with more than 150 different brands nationwide.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Karen Loza, and I’m from a very small and cool town in Mexico called Valle Hermoso,, I’m a food photographer and for the last 5 years, I’ve created content for local businesses and brands around the USA and Mexico.
I own a creative company called The Business Program, where we help brands elevate their image with cool content and unique style for their brands. We offer Photography, Video, Reels, Graphic Design etc

Last year I opened my food photography studio in Brownsville, TX where I create recipes and campaigns for my clients, sometimes we cook everything from scratch in my kitchen or the client joins us for the fun process!

Besides photography, I have a passion for sharing what I’ve learned during the past years, so I started my YouTube channel where I share a lot of things about food photography and I also offer online/in-person mentorships and workshops for new content creators/business owners and photographer who want to learn the basics of business image or want to elevate their technique, etc

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is a beautiful place to start connecting with people. But it can also be very hard to find the right people, I’ve worked with a lot of brands that no matter the number of followers they have, always want more, and we always tend to want more, and while it’s totally fine to always look to grow your social media, you want to connect with the people you already have first. Maybe even clean your following, why? because at first we had no idea what were doing, and we expected our friends and family and the people we know, to be our cheerleaders, and sometimes they’re not our main audience.

If I had to start all over again, I’d use the tone, the content, and the vibe I’m using now, more than 10 years after I first started my social media. Because now I’ve grown as a photographer and I know what i really want, and most important: what i do NOT want

My advice:
Talk to the camera, own your social media profile
Stop waiting for the right amount of followers, to start doing what you wanna do.
Talk about things, other than business, and connect with the people you have now.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

For me, its the professionalism. I never take a client for granted, I show up on time and deliver what I sell.
I’ve been transparent and real, I worked a good relationship with my clients,

Last but not least, I know how to solve problems, I take every client’s business as my very own, and I have eyes on every single detail. I just care about my clients, a lot.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.karenloza.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenlozag
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenlozaphoto/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@concamaraenmanoporkarenloza