When you find that thing you are most passionate about, chasing it with everything you’ve got is never the wrong choice!
I always thought I wanted to be a lawyer, I loved books and love to prove my point, people would always tell me, ‘You’ll be a good lawyer o” so yes, 2012, I went on to study law at Bayero University Kano.
I however didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life, yes being a lawyer was a good ambition, but I still felt lost, when asked what I wanted to accomplish I would just keep beating around the bush not having a straight answer.
I kept trying different things in school, I breakdanced, modeled, even did music for a while.
Fortunately, I met a friend who introduced me to Photography, and I started to do it for the fun of it and everything just clicked.
I’d spend hours and hours in the studio watching pictures get taking, I tried to learn to use Photoshop, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it, it was a very frustrating application to me because I was trying to learn it on my own, mostly through YouTube videos.
I remember I uninstalled and reinstalled the app more than 10times out of anger, and I also still had to focus on school.
I graduated in 2017, and completed law school back home at Lagos in 2018 all the while still doing Photography on and off on the side with my phone and any camera I could find ( I was much better at it at that point)
I got sent back to the north, Jigawa state for NYSC. I worked at the Ministry of Justice, and I had to go a little hungry most of my service year to save up to buy my first camera, a Nikon d3100. From there, I never looked back.
I decided to pursue Photography full time at the end of my service year. I stayed back in Jigawa state, stopped doing law, to the dismay of my parents and became a Photographer.
I opened up a small studio (Kaz Empire) with a single 80cm soft box, a flash and my small camera.
It was a very difficult time, I was taking a big risk, some people told me I was wasting my life, but I was really passionate about Photography. I could spend hours talking about it, reading about it, teaching it, which is not something I saw myself doing with law, so I followed my passion.
It showed in my works. Within a short while I had customers constantly calling, I also applied for and was selected to participate in the first TECNO CAM mission competition, where I didn’t win but I came out as one of the 8 finalists.
From there I also participated in a national geography photo camp, and I’ve been invited to other photo camps with them. I even had a YouTube live session to share my works. I’ve also been able to train over 500 corps members on Photography through the NYSC skill acquisition program here in Jigawa
It hasn’t been an easy journey, but with consistency fueled by the will to Stop at Nothing to succeed at my passion, it has all been worth it!
It’s been 2-years as a full time Photographer, and I have no regrets.
It’s truly amazing what we can achieve when we Stop at Nothing to succeed.
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