Graduate Spotlight
The oldest of four children, Mirna Robles grew up in a middle-class family in Villa Juarez, Mexico. Her family instilled in her the values of hard work and perseverance. Since she was a young girl, she enjoyed learning about art, draying, and always felt love for the camera. As a child she began taking photos of the people in her hometown and by the age of 13 she was photographing social and religious events around town and became known as Mirna La Fotógrafa (Mirna the Photographer.) It gave her such joy to deliver the photos to her subjects; she felt happy that people would have a good memory of the good day. Her work as a photographer also helped her overcome her timidness. Although her first love was photography, when she was at University, her father encouraged her to study something more serious. Motivated by the injustices and losses that she had seen in her hometown and other small towns like it, she decided to study law. After graduating and working for the government for four years, Mirna decided to pursue her passion of photography. After making photography her focus, Mirna got to know many different cities, and decided to settle down in San Jose. She began to pursue her dream of being a professional photographer in the United States, knowing that it would not be easy. She began learn everything she could from tutorials on the internet, until she had the opportunity to work with Simon Ho, a Korean photographer, who, with his 25 years of experience, taught her all the techniques and guided her in her passion. After being inspired by such a master teacher who always said money was not important when you have your passion for your job, she began to earn money and became a professional photographer. With the photography skills she needed, Mirna decided to make photography her business and enrolled in the Women's Initiative ALAS program. Within ALAS she nurtured her dream, to have a photography studio and to be her own boss.

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