My love for photography started while I was a child; I
remember buying a camera with money meant for my JAMB registration form back in
secondary school just because it was my cousin’s birthday party and I wanted to
snap good photos at the event. While I was in University, I was the social
director of the student union. I got a digital camera from my brother in the US
which was of great use to me throughout my tenure as the social director of the
student union government. I ensured that I documented all of our events with
the use of my camera; I photographed our jambite nights, award nights, Mr & Miss campus, and the most beautiful girl in Ekiti pageant. Honestly, I never
knew I’d become a successful professional photographer, I only knew I had a
flair for photography. I’ve always been a fun loving and very social
individual; I got a job as the presenter of ‘reggae splash’ on progress fm
while I was the social director of the student union government in school and I
had to juggle these with my studies.
I started professional photography in the year 2011. It
wasn’t an easy journey from the aviation industry to photography. It was quite
challenging leaving a paid job at Virgin Nigeria to start up a career as an
entrepreneur. It was a story of real hustle for customers in the beginning
because social media wasn’t this big, it was all about referrals and who you
knew. I remember meeting an event planner who asked me about the type of camera
I was working with, I told her I was using a canon 7D, and she told me
point-blank that she couldn’t work with me because her photographers had more
sophisticated cameras. Back then, as a photographer, you had to market your
brand on your own, and that was quite challenging. I was able to breakthrough
because I didn’t give up; I was very consistent.
When I joined Instagram, I didn’t know about its benefits so
I only used to post my personal photos. I would pose like a King, and take
flashy photos to post until I stumbled on pages of some photographers who had a
lot of followers and a compilation of their works displayed on Instagram. This
was the moment I took Instagram as a big deal, deleted all of my personal
photos and started posting my works until Bella Naija posted one of them. This
photo got a lot of likes, but nobody knew who the photographer was because I
didn’t add any tags. So, I made a serious effort to learn how to use Instagram
well. After this realization, I made Instagram my first office; I resume on
Instagram before heading to my physical office in Lekki phase 1. I am very
grateful that we currently have an average of 700 people contacting us from
Instagram in 6 months. Instagram is the best thing that has happened to my
business.
A lot of people see us at Klala Photography as just wedding
photographers, but
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