Ben Kiruthi has earned the right to take home
Sh450,000 or more every month from
photography.
Mr Kiruthi is a wedding photographer. Under
his company, Faithful Frames, he owns cameras
worth over Sh1 million because, above all else,
the quality of his work and customer
satisfaction are his key selling points.
The soft-spoken photographer describes his
entrepreneurial journey as “extremely
laughable”.
He narrates: “In 2010, I had a Nokia 5230
phone that I would use to take photos of my
girlfriend and our church members and post
them on Facebook. Then one day a woman sent
me a message on Facebook asking how much I
charged for a photo-shoot”.
This enquiry made him realise that his art was
bigger than the job he had at Telkom, earning
Sh50,000 a month.
“I resigned from my work and focused my all
on photography,” he says.
Enthusiastic and without a clue how a
photography business is run, he registered his
firm, Faithful Frames, which he co-owns with
Ms Gathoni Mwathi, his girlfriend.
Then he bought his first photography
equipment. But like any other venture, the
early stages were characterised by financial
problems.
“We were not known, there was no business
coming in,” he says.
To get more visible, the duo took a bold step:
“We decided to take photos at weddings,
engagement parties, and studio portraits pro
bono for six months”.
BOOKED IN ADVANCE
After six months of free labour, business
picked up. And today, they are booked for
weddings even a year in advance.
He charges Sh150,000 for a full wedding shoot.
On the material day, he and Ms Mwathi split
work. “Ms Mwathi normally goes to the
groom’s crib and I follow the bride to capture
the preparation.”
In the wedding, he says, he captures the
activities that are in the programme while his
colleague picks the involuntary emotional
reactions of the guests as the function goes on.
Mr Kiruthi is aware that photographers are still
not regarded as professionals in Kenya and
cushions himself against being short-changed.
The fee is paid in three instalments; half
during booking, the other half divided in two,
one paid during the wedding and the final one
when the customer picks up the album.
He has learnt the hard way about his work
being disrespected: “One day, we travelled to
Rwanda at our own expense after the customer
promised to pay when we got there… we have
never got a cent to date,” says Mr Kiruthi, who
holds a Master’s degree in entrepreneurship.
Other hiccups include losing his equipment on
the day of shoot and getting an accident just a
few days to the wedding.
His work, he has come to learn, is also
emotionally draining. “I shot the wedding of a
lovely couple who went on honeymoon and
when they came back, they had broken up and
did not want the photos anymore because it
was over between them,” he recalls.
His blog was ranked top 100 by Google as one
of the most visited sites in East Africa last year,
while his Facebook page has over 20,000
followers.
Ms Mwathi, who is yet to sit her final exams
for her undergraduate degree, was nominated
under the category of young photographer in
the Kenya photography awards 2013.
FREE MENTORING
The two go round the country offering free
photography workshops.
“We have conducted these workshops for a
year now and we are glad, there are youngsters
who are now a competition to us because they
learnt something from us,” he says.
source: daily nation
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