Passion Drives Kufigwa To Excel In Photography
Faith Siako | Monday October 19, 2015 11:44
Kufigwa is a 25-year-old man from Mapoka village who owns photography, film and graphics media company that has branches in Francistown and Gaborone.
“The name of my company is Troy Icon Media and it started operating five years ago,” he said.
According to Kufigwa, the love for recording the most precious moments of people’s lives into images prompted him to start his own photographic company.
He said creating unique and spontaneous imagery behind the camera was interesting to him hence he took the path to use his interest to help people treasure permanent memories.
“Troy Icon Media which has been doing well and improving over the years strives to preserve the important events of people’s lives,” he said, adding that the company takes photographs and videos of birthdays, marriages, anniversaries and other personal moments.
Kufigwa who is currently studying a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration at the University of Botswana revealed that he has not gone through any formal training related to photography or media studies.
He said the passion and love of producing hundreds of images thus making them into a narrative story is the artistry his business relies on.
However, like any other business he also has some challenges one of them being competition.
“There are several photography and media companies across the country and many photo studios and individuals who produce the same service as mine hence the competition is very high,” he said.
He said that to beat this competitive environment he serves his customers with the best quality and genuine photographs, films and graphics that assists him get more tenders.
He added that he sometimes encounters the challenge of servicing the equipment he uses since they are very expensive. Kufigwa urged the youth who want to start their own businesses to be open minded and creative. He said they must have passion and must never give up when things become hard but instead be strong instead.
Additionally, the government has a keen interest to assist the youth to start their own businesses hence, the youth must make use of these opportunities, as he revealed that when he started five years ago there were not a lot of government empowerment programs.
“My business was self funded with the help from my family. I started very small, operating with a single camera at home in Francistown. I sometimes went for months without getting any tenders but I never gave up” he said.
Kufigwa said that his dream is to grow his business into a big brand and open a chain of studios like Universal Studies and other world known studios.