Luis Maruwasa also known as Louis is not your typical photographer, you will seldom find him in a T-shirt, with his preference being shirts, ties and sometimes fancy bow ties. The son of a career diplomat, he has grown up in places as far afield as the United Kingdom spending most of his youth in international schools, where casual wear was the in-thing, hence his tendency to stay away from them now. Louis has two brothers and a sister. High school was largely uneventful, in his opinion. After high school Louis took up Science at The University of Namibia but professes he got incredibly bored and flanked out as it did not teach anything he really expected to learn. So after the first year he took up business, largely because there was no other course really appetising to him at the time. Half way into his business degree, he developed an interest in advertising. He completed his degree and moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. Louis soon moved back to Windhoek after he received a phone call from a friend from Trinidad and Tobago whom wanted to start an agency in Namibia.
From humble beginnings he has risen to Associate Creative Director at Adforce, which is an affiliate of the world’s largest agency Publicis, where he has worked on campaigns for Debmarine, Nampost, Telecom and wrote scripts for the Namibian soapie, The ties that bind. Louis is also the voice on several radio adverts. He credits this to a series of fortunate events, and possibly to his sixth or seventh sense.
Louis never considered being a photographer, for him it was rather just a fascination, especially with how Hollywood through posters created this crispy and amazing glamour about its stars. When an opportunity to buy a digital SLR camera came up, he took it. At first all photography he did had nothing to do with people. It was all plants, machines, Aston Martins at dealerships in Sandton and airplanes. Soon he turned his attention to people when his sister asked him if he had ever taken pictures of people. Each shoot teaching him new ideas and techniques. “Photography appears rather simple, but it is not, yes anyone can take a picture but only a true master can create a picture. You see photography is like cooking, we can all cook to some extent but we are not chefs. I find myself in a never-ending chase to find and discover how to be better and how to do more. This is in essence the nature of photography for me.’’
Louis is self taught and has learned from reading magazines and watching YouTube, making in the process his fair share of mistakes but has come to learn from his mistakes. At present Louis does photography for models, families, corporate, advertising and any interesting idea people have. His biggest concern about photography in Namibia is that people do not work together, and further that the society still has deep racial divisions. He also worries about the lack of education about the differing types of photography. Some people are totally unaware that Zoo Park and photo-shoots by professional photographers are very different. “You don’t’ expect a chef to cook a meal and sell it to you for the same price as KFC street wise, do you?”
Louis would like to have photo shoots all over the world and eventually move into his other love, film. In his regard he has approached Dalton Ashikoto, a local film maker and director with a few proposals. Louis has also started a modelling agency called Agencia Models to find uses for some of the people he ends up taking pictures off. Louis is working on a magazine that will be hosted on www.issuu.com called Model Namibia, that intends to showcase the local fashion, photography, modelling and commercial arts scene and all participants are welcome to submit their work.
As for upcoming photographers his advice is that you must experiment, find your style and just keep developing. Learn to use your gear, and if you are going to charge for the work, wait till you are ready, do not rush into it. The fastest way to learn is to either become an apprentice with someone who is already practicing, do a photography course and to practice with people you know and enjoy yourself!
By Kevin Kamati