My name is Philippe Calouro Ngabonziza. I was born in Rwanda, a small country in the heart of Africa. When I was nine years old there was a terrible genocide in my country and I lost my parents, brother and other members of my family. During that time, I was forced to flee my home and all of my family’s property was burned, including irreplaceable photos of my lost family members. This experience taught me how important maintaining the memory of loved ones is, and has inspired me to want to help others capture special moments through photography. I have also discovered that the importance of photography can be found in every aspect of life, including business, family, and social media for not only maintaining memories, but communicating messages.
After the genocide, many foreign people came to my country with professional cameras to document what had occurred. I remember always wanting to own my own camera and know how to take good pictures, as I saw they did. However, I did not have the means at the time. Eventually, after many years on the streets, I developed a love and talent for theater and storytelling, and through these skills secured a sponsorship to attend school. In 2012 I moved to the United States where I finally found myself able to afford a camera, attend photography classes and start a photography business. My extensive training in theater and storytelling has also not gone to waste, as it has been an asset that crosses over to my photography.
I have grown into a professional photographer with a strong vision for documentation and story telling captured in editorial images, the studio or in real life events. I especially enjoy photographing happy occasions and stages of life through event and portrait photography (i.e. weddings, engagements, maternity photos, children, etc.). I have experience shooting for KJ2 Productions, Sacramento Magazine, American Wedding Group, and George Street Photo & Video.
I take pride in my work, am a good listener, and am very conscious of making my clients happy, capturing the moments that are most important to them. I want to make sure that my clients are able to maintain the memories through photographs in the way they want to remember them.
