Glory Eze, an Ordinary National Diploma (OND) holder of Business Studies from Lagos State Polytechnic, began her journey in photography in church, when she recorded services with her phone and shared for free. A time later came when the church called for volunteers for video department, she indicated interest and had free training. The training became a booster to her passion. As a cleaner in a photo lab, she combined the experience to set up her own. Through dedication and skill, Glory, the CEO of Adorable Media Concept, has photographed prominent figures, including former Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha.
By Eberechi Obinagwam
Glory Eze, an Ordinary National Diploma (OND) holder of Business Studies from Lagos State Polytechnic, began her journey in photography in church, when she recorded services with her phone and shared for free. A time later came when the church called for volunteers for video department, she indicated interest and had free training. The training became a booster to her passion. As a cleaner in a photo lab, she combined the experience to set up her own. Through dedication and skill, Glory, the CEO of Adorable Media Concept, has photographed prominent figures, including former Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha.
How it all started
While speaking to TheNiche in an interview, Glory said she had always had a passion for capturing events hence her interest to learn the skill. “I have always had a passion for capturing events. So, I started from the church by recording what was going on during service with my small smart phone then.” Glory further revealed that she got an extra experience from where she was working as a cleaner. “While the church I was attending then was training me on how to handle video camera so I could help the video department, I was also working as a cleaner in a photo lab. The church trained me on composition alone. The training and my passion for capturing events made me pick interest in knowing what those photographers were coming to do in the lab. It was with that zeal that helped me with more experience in photography.”
The CEO of Adorable Media Concept said when she realized how good she had become in photography, she decided to turn it into a source of income. “I started first with wait-and-get passports with my phone, not with camera in 2007. I was using a phone to snap passports, at the same time, copy music to customers’ phones. You know, that time, that was what was trending. Copy music, printing music, and the person would give you a small amount of money. And from there, I started advancing in my skill,” she said.
Source of Capital
Starting up Adorable Media Concept was challenging for Glory. She said, “I didn’t have a camera. So, I started renting a camera every Saturday to go for events. Then, you just snapped wait-and-get pictures in a party and came back and sell to them. You would rush to the lab and print. When you printed, you came and sold. So, I started making money by renting a camera. When I returned the camera, I would have my profit. It was indeed a very big challenge for me before I got my own camera,” she said.
Penetrating the market
Penetrating the market too was challenging for Glory because she needed to beg people to snap and after snapping them, she would have to beg them to collect their pictures and even to pay.
“Most times, after snapping them, you would find out that they did not like your picture or they would tell you that you snapped so much of it. Some of them that you captured unaware might not be willing to pay because it didn’t concern them, while some wouldn’t want to leave their pictures with you but would just pay any amount and have it. So, it was a very big challenge because you don’t know how people would respond to the pictures that you brought to them. They may pay or may not. Customers can come up with so many excuses and most of them will not pay.
“I was literally begging people in an event to snap them when I started but not now anymore. As I keep going in the business, people started knowing me and how good I was and jobs started coming. I thank God for where I am today,” she added.
Nasty experience
Glory had a particular experience that she said she never prayed for her enemy to have. Her bad experience in the job was snapping pictures for a corporate organization and losing the memory card. She said: “One shocking experience that I have, and I pray it would not happen to me again or even my enemies was after snapping pictures and I lost the memory card. And it was a corporate organization. Before they gave me that job, they asked me if I was incorporated, that is, if I was registered with CAC because they wanted to know if I was a professional and I said yes. So, after I took the pictures, I don’t know how I lost the memory card. I had not done any backup on the event nor copied it from my system. That was how I lost it. It was a very difficult experience because I was the only photographer they called for the event.
“But what saved me was, being sincere to them about what happened to the pictures. I went straight to them, I wrote to them and told them that this was what happened. Because I had done some jobs for the company in the past, they pardoned me. If not, that thing is suable and I thank God that they didn’t sue me. The data recovering was the worse experience I have had since my journey in this profession. In fact, I can’t even recover from the experience,” she said.
She added that she got intimidation from colleagues who had quality cameras than she did while starting up, “But that can’t be compared to the loss of a memory card. Though it was so intimidating, like when you enter a party, and you find a senior colleague with a big gadget. That will intimidate your own because the higher the resolution of your camera, the best quality it will produce. So, when you now meet a senior colleague that came with a high-resolution camera, maybe like a 24 megapixel, and you came with maybe 16 megapixels, you will feel intimidated. You will feel, ah, that this person is going to do better and get a better job.”
Glory said even though a camera quality plays key role in better photographic outcome, the skill of a photographer supersedes that. “But later, I found that it’s not really about your gadget. It’s about who is behind the camera, what you can do, how great things you will do with your camera. Somebody can come with 24 megapixels, and you that came with 16 megapixels will beat the person. Yes, then it was so intimidating because your colleagues with bigger gadget would even mock you. But later, I came to understand the difference that it is not all about gadget, it’s about who is behind the camera so I became confident of myself irrespective of the kind of gadget I met out there. It didn’t intimidate me anymore,” she said.
Encounter with Okorocha
Glory’s breakthrough came when she jumped a fence to enter a party that was strictly for registered photographers who were invited. Unknown to her, it was an event that was being hosted by the former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha in Owerri during his first term. She said when she found herself in, she started snapping not knowing who he was then.
“All I knew was that I saw security escorts guarding him. The escorts thought I was from the press because of the way I dressed. I dressed so corporately but I didn’t have a press tag so they allowed me to snap. You know your courage can bring favour to you. So, as I snapped, the official photographer of the event just looked at me and behold he was someone I had met before. So, he gave me a chance to keep snapping and luckily for me, Rochas sent someone to give me his complimentary card and later, he came to me by himself and told me, ‘The youth said there’s no job, but you created a job for yourself. He was so impressed and gave me his complimentary card himself and asked me to come and see him in his office, but I didn’t have the opportunity of meeting him one-on-one again because of the chief security officer he handed my case to but I got my first laptop from Rochas Okorocha from that singular act. It was indeed a breakthrough for me because it made me push further. I said to myself, ah, this girl, you will go far in this job,” she said.
Challenges in business
Glory commended electricity companies for their recent improvement. She said electricity used to be one of her major challenges. “But it’s a bit better now,” The next to her challenges she said is insecurity. According to her, those in the same line of business with her are always afraid of theft when going with their gadgets because they can collect your equipment from you because it cost a lot of money. “There is a fear of theft, you don’t know who is going to hijack you or carry your gadgets. So even as you are buying gadgets, you’ll be careful not to invest much money on better items or equipment.”
Another challenge that Glory mentioned was lack of apprentice. She said youth of these days don’t want to learn. “When I place advert for training you won’t see any and the ones that will come will not be serious. So, it’s affecting my job. I’m doing the job all alone. When we go out, do shooting, and interview, we come back to edit on our own. There is no apprentice to help you out and one major challenge in this job is the editing part, hence the reason we need more hands because clients want artificial content. Somebody that has tribal mark might even want you to remove the tribal mark. Those that have pimples will want you to remove the pimples. If the youths are willing to learn, they could help you with that while you do others but they don’t, they want easy and fast money but don’t want to learn to get it,” she said.
Japa
The CEO of Adorable Media Concept said if she has an opportunity of traveling abroad, she will Japa. “What am I doing in this country? It’s because I don’t have the resources. If I have the resources I will travel out because I know I will do better there. I will be paid according to my time compared to Nigeria where they will underprice your job and still complain.”
About Glory Eze
Glory Eze is an indigene of Imo State. She had her National Diploma in Business Studies from Lagos State Polytechnic. Out of passion, she delved into photography in 2007 after her OND. She is into event coverage which consists of photography and video coverage. She trains people on her skill and also hire workers when she has events to cover.
