Rising Stars: Meet Karen Richard

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Richard.

Hi Karen, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in South London, England. My Dad was a civil servant, and Mum an artist. Although we didn’t have much money, they were both keen to expose me to as much culture as they could, so I was regularly taken to art galleries and historic homes and I learned to appreciate art from an early age.

Dad’s job meant he sometimes spoke at conferences in places like Paris, Brussels, and the Haig. If these happened during the summer break, we would pack up the car and spend 5 or 6 weeks on a road trip across Europe. Although I didn’t really appreciate it at the time, I got to experience a lot of very cool places and it definitely instilled a love of travel in me.

He was also a keen amateur photographer and I learned the basics on his manual film camera when I was about seven years old. I got my first “proper” camera for my 13th birthday, a second-hand Soviet-built Zenit E SLR; I mostly photographed my family and our pets on black and white film and did my own processing in the youth club darkroom.

I actually considered a career in photography when I left school but was encouraged to get a “proper” job. I saved up my first paychecks and upgraded my camera to an Olympus OM1 as soon I could afford to and invested in a few lenses over the years. I shot anything and everything but was especially interested in travel and nature photography.

I was blessed to enjoy a great corporate career and spent many years in executive roles in the commercial construction industry in the UK. Photography remained a passion but I worked long hours so for many years, I only really picked up my camera when I was on vacation.

Moving to Nashville in January 2010 after my husband Luc’s company transferred him back to the US changed everything. It took two years to sort out my green card, and in that time I got right over corporate life (especially the 60 hour weeks and 5 am starts!) and was ready for a complete career change!. I also had plenty of time on my hands to fall back in love with photography, so this became the natural choice.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
When I first started my business, I was still regularly traveling to the UK to spend as much time as I could with my elderly parents and my disabled brother. This sometimes meant I wasn’t around for months at a time, and of course it is very hard to grow a business if you are not there.

Sadly I lost my parents within a year of each other, and my eldest brother passed away early in 2020. I miss them all terribly but I’m thankful that they didn’t have to live through all of the challenges created by the pandemic.

Covid has also created challenges for my business as before lockdown, almost 50% of my revenue came from shooting team headshots on location. This work disappeared overnight and is only starting to gradually come back now, My studio reopened last May (with covid-safe processes) but it was very quiet for the first few months.

Looking back, in some ways this downtime proved to be a blessing, as it gave me the space to work on my business instead of in my business. I took advantage of many of the great virtual networking opportunities that sprung up and met a lot of very interesting folks via Zoom, I became far more active on LinkedIn to grow my local network, and I also completely rebuilt my website and rebranded my business.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Although I do also shoot editorial-style portraits in my studio, over 95% of my work is headshots and personal branding.

Specializing in headshots has allowed me to really hone my skills and I have been coached by the best in the business, world-leading headshot photographer Peter Hurley. I am now an Associate photographer in his Headshot Crew and currently one of fewer than 150 photographers worldwide to have achieved this status. I’m proud of this achievement because Peter sets the bar very high and it means he considers my work to be of high enough quality that he can confidently recommend me to clients looking for headshots in the Nashville area.

In 2015 we converted part of the basement of our home into a high-end studio; I have over 1,200 square feet of space dedicated to providing a 5-star experience to my clients. I also take my studio on location and capture high-quality employee headshots quickly and conveniently in their own workplace. This allows my corporate clients to showcase their teams and provide a great first impression to the potential customers, clients, and employees that visit their website.

I’m very proud of my reputation for delivering an outstanding customer experience, with over 100 5-star Google reviews as well as many LinkedIn recommendations. My goal is to ensure all my clients enjoy their time in front of my camera and I guarantee no one will leave my studio without a headshot they love!

Recently I was invited to join Portraits for Patriots as a volunteer “Portraiteer” helping to empower those who have faithfully served our nation to feel confident in their personal brand during their military-to-civilian transition.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
A lot of things make me happy including spending time outdoors in nature, hiking with friends, live music, good food, hanging out with friends – or just with my husband Luc and our three cats!

Apart from photography, my main passion is traveling and I’ve been really fortunate to have visited over 70 countries. Luc and I both really enjoy adventure travel and we’ve done some really cool trips, including hiking 50 km of the Inca Trail in Peru to Machu Picchu, summiting Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, snorkeling in the Galapagos and in the ice water of a glacial lake in Iceland, and spending a week on a horseback safari in Botswana!

Sadly we had to cancel our planned trip to Madagascar last year because of Covid, but I’m excited we will hopefully be able to start planning a few new adventures very soon. Of course, my camera travels with me wherever I go so I get to combine my favorite pastimes!

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.karenlrichardphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenlrichardphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KarenLRichardPhotography
• Other: https://www.google.com/maps/place//data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x8863804fe79d5543:0x7ec71e7be3f04cae?source=g.page.default

Image Credits
My headshot by Peter Hurley