I make my way to Safaricom Stadium in Kasarani around midday and find the place buzzing with activities despite the hot afternoon sun. Young people drawn from all over the country (mostly in high schools and colleges) have converged here for the International Youth Fellowship (IYF) cultural event that has been running since 24th July and is slated to end on the 29th of this month. Tents pitched outside the Safaricom Indoor Arena have products and services tailored for the youthful people.
My attention is particularly fixated on a group of students from different campuses milling around a tent set up right at the entrance of the arena-The infinix tent. Three tripods are propped at the middle of the tent and three infinix phones mounted on them. The students take turns snapping away pictures of their friends or the surroundings as they listen intently to Cynthia and her colleagues who walk them through the dynamics of mobile photography.
What I take from the whole experience is that, we have entered an interesting stage in life where the decision of the kind of phone to purchase is, to a large extent, informed by its camera. Besides the durability and reliability of a phone’s network, the quality of a phone’s camera has become an important consideration in the present age. Although it is highly unlikely that the integrated camera will take the place of DSLR, many people prefer taking pictures with their phones especially because of convenience and portability. It is easy to take out your phone capture moments everywhere. It becomes even easier to share them with friends or on different social media platforms.
The increased purchases of smartphones by the young people could be explained by their need to take as many pictures and share them mostly on Instagram and Twitter. Ease of use and affordability also point to the popularity of smartphones among the youth.
Mobile photography in Kenya has also grown to unprecedented levels. Mobile phone manufacturing companies are taking this into consideration introducing smartphones with quality cameras to ward off competition. While many of the pictures taken are amateurish, with the right skills, it will be possible to hack this relatively new kind of photography.
Leveraging on the quality of their cameras, especially Infinix Zero 3, Infinix Kenya started a campaign dubbed ‘Infinix na comrades’ at the beginning of this month to appreciate the growing popularity in mobile photography. The campaign, which is more of a mentorship programme, aims at enabling young people particularly in colleges meet top pro photographers in Kenya for a learning experience in its phase 2 come September. Barely a month since it was launched, the programme has successfully been introduced to Multimedia University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT Karen), Moi University and at the IYF event.
The company understands that photography is a skill and therefore it is giving the young people an opportunity to learn from the pros. It does not end there as there are lots of infinix giveaways such as phones (Zero 3, Note 2LTE and Hot 3 LTE) for the participants in a competition dubbed #infinixmoments on Xclub app. All you need to do is take a picture and upload it under that hashtag. The Xclub app is found on infinix phones and can be downloaded from play store for non-infinix users. The campaign ends this week.
