Exclusive: A chat with Bruno the CEO of Photosynthesis

When you mention names of top photographers in Jinja, the name Bruno Mweru may not come first but Photosynthesis will be mentioned among the top three, but behind every brand there is always a top brain, we caught up with the man behind Jinja’s top Photography brand (Bruno Mweru) and had a chat with him.

I am a cinematographer, besides photography being one of the hobbies and passion, I do love adventure, I love writing, I love children, I spend my free time writing photo concepts, and most of concepts are attached to nature, I so much love watching water. When I had just come to Jinja I stayed in Mbiko and I loved the Journey from Mbiko to Jinja town because I loved watching water at the Nile, something about me unlike so many youth I do not spend much time on social media, I go to social media to post about my photography business. I am father of four beautiful children.

How I got in Photography, in Primary two I picked in interest in drawing, in my family we are gifted in two things, Mathematics and Art, I picked more interest in drawing, when my father realised that, he bought me a Kodak film camera in Primary five. He realised it was taking a lot of my time and kept it away, he gave it back to me after two year but by that time digital cameras has been introduced. I bought my own first digital camera in my Senior one.

I went professional in 2013, my experience in photography has taught me one major lesson, if you can into photography with a typical money making mind, it will get hard, but if you come into the industry with a passion for photography you enjoy it and it can easily earn you.

The only thing that can make me give up on Photography is Death, he says this smiling. To the young photographers, most of them think its cameras that take photos, photography is a language. My best photographer who inspires me is called Irina Dzhul from Kyiv Ukraine, she takes photos of ancient places in a modern setting, she brings ancient places to modern life. Photography is a language, not just cameras and shooting.

This is how you earn out of photography, if you do beautiful stories, you get creative, people have a reason to pay you good and reasonable money.

About Photosynthesis, whenever you are broke or hungry you have time to think of how to survive, so one time I was in my hard time, I thought of a brand that could be attached to my name, and something that could be perceived by anybody. Reflecting to my past, Photosynthesis which was the hardest word to write for almost everybody in Primary came to my mind, interestingly it carried all the meaning of what I wanted to do.

We started with one small computer and a small camera, canon 600D in my small sitting room, we progressed to our first office at Bayeko shopping centre, then later we graduated to a bigger office in 2020, and that is where we are now on Gabula Road.

Our next target is to promote good photography by training better photographers, we also look at picking with the latest technology and latest equipments. On record we transformed the photography industry in Jinja, most people were stuck with the old style studio photography and we promoted outdoor photography, encourages more creativity.