Photographer & Creative Director Bal Bhatla
About this episode…
Photographer & Creative Director Bal Bhatla
Bal loved his job in advertising, but posting on Instagram as ‘Mr Whisper’ changed the course of his career, leading him to work not only for himself, but with some insanely high profile brands from the off.
As an early ‘creator’, Bal has had to adapt as social media has evolved, to make sure the brands and the full-time rates kept coming. But despite the competition, he has his blinkers on. He’s only in a race against himself.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
When Instagram changes the game
Imagine being able to name huge brands as some of your first clients! That’s exactly what happened to Bal…
“Instagram came along and I just gelled with it. I was like, wow, a visual way of communicating with people in a very transparent way at the time. It was something I just had to get involved with… I soon found that my own Instagram account started to get quite popular and I started to get some great briefs with some incredible clients to kick off with, it was like Lonely Planet, Adidas, and Jaguar.”
Why getting approval from the real boss matters
Having the support of his family helped Bal get his freelance career off the ground…
“I said to my fiancee at the time, ‘look, I'd love to give photography a go full-time. I'm getting some great briefs in, and I think if I was to put my full-time into this, rather than doing it just after work, I could make something of it’. She gave me the nod, the green light, which you need from the boss. And that was 12 years ago. And that's how I started in freelance.”
The Fear of being freelance
Bal overcame his fears of becoming a freelancer, to pivot from employing freelancers to being one…
“I was constantly employing freelancers and looking at them from afar with this kind of, ‘Gosh, they're making so much money. They get to swan in here and swan out working on the cool projects’. But I just always feared it. I was like, ‘No, I need to have a job locked down’. But low and behold through these opportunities with the first clients, it really gave me faith in being able to use my past experience and mix it in with what I was going to start doing with photography.”
going underground
During his daily commute, Bal used this time to take photos and in doing so, found his niche…
“I became very popular for shooting stuff on the London Underground. And that was mainly because that was the only opportunity I had going to and from work at the time, but it became a really popular series.”
Giving Creative input
For Bal, it’s not all about taking incredible photographs. He also likes to give his creative input on the projects he works on, something which really works for him.
“So I thought, something I want to do, and I think that my followers would like to see, would be to test out the iPhone in a helicopter ride over London. So I got back to them with that suggestion. At first the agency were like, 'Oh, thanks, but, you know, we haven't got the budget for it', but then low and behold a month later, they get back to me with the budget and they were really excited to work on it.”
STaYING TRUE TO THE DREAM
Bal felt he always had to be switched on, particularly being on social - but that lead to burn out. Now he makes sure he takes time out each week and remembers how it started…
“I make sure I take time to go and do why I started this in the first place: sitting in my office thinking, imagine if I could just go out and take photos whenever I wanted two, three times a week say, and then I'd make sure I had enough work..’
Just staying true to that little dream helps my work life balance stay quite balanced. I do honestly feel very lucky with being able to do the things that I'm allowed to do creatively and with my family, and that's all through being freelance.“
it’s a marathon, not a sprint
Bal isn’t one for following the crowds. Over the years, he’s developed his own style, whilst keeping an eye on the competition.
“I'm not in a race with anyone else. It's my own marathon basically. And as long as I can keep my blinkers on to a certain degree in terms of that competitive level, I don't want to be doing stuff just because someone else is doing it.
Pace yourself. If you're taking your career seriously, just take your time. It's you against you.”
finding your passion
Growth doesn’t have to come from the big projects. Sometimes it’s the side projects that keeps Bal going.
“There was a time when just going through these similar projects back and forth, I literally wanted to pack it all in. But what keeps you sane is your little passion projects, your side projects, because that's what really allows me to continue to grow outside of those briefs as well.”
More from bal bhatla
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Freelance Photographer and Creative Director Bal Bhatla AKA Mr Whisper
Steve Folland:
Bal Bhatla, who is a freelance photographer and creative director based in London. Hey Bal.
Bal Bhatla:
Hello, Steve. Thank you so much for having me.
Steve Folland:
How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Bal Bhatla:
So my freelance journey was very organic actually. I always feared treading into the world of freelance prior to becoming a professional freelance photographer. I worked in advertising and I absolutely loved my job. I'd been doing it for 12 years. I'd worked my way up to Creative Director. I got to work with some incredible brands, but part of my job, and I guess, part of my downfall, being so passionate about things, was when social media Web 2.0 came about, and part of my role as Digital Creative Director at the time at Samsung, was to get involved with social media, to see how they could, as a brand, could use it to start communicating with their consumers. And so I threw myself into the world of Twitter, Facebook, and all the socials there were, but I was really rubbish at most of them.
Bal Bhatla:
<laugh> Mainly because I'm probably more of a visual person, so when Instagram came along, and I probably said them all in completely the wrong order, but <laugh> just the way I remember it, Instagram came along and I just gelled with it. I was like, wow, a visual way of communicating with people in a very kind of transparent way at the time, 2010. And it was something that I just had to get involved with. So I started to employ Instagram into as many projects as I could at work, but then I soon found that my own Instagram account started to get quite popular and I started to get some great briefs with some incredible clients to kick off with, it was like Lonely Planet, Adidas, and Jaguar.
Bal Bhatla:
So I was like, whoa, these are some cool clients, I know how to deal with clients because I've been doing it most of my career, but this time I'm afforded this creative control like I've never had. So I said to my fiance at the time, I said, look, I'd love to give photography a go full-time. I'm getting some great briefs in, and I think if I was to put my full-time into this, rather than doing it just after work, I could make something of it. <laugh> She gave me the nod, the green light, which you need from the boss. And that was 12 years ago. And that's how I started in freelance. Just giving it a little go, thinking there was potential in this photography career that I started through Instagram and all on my smartphone. And here we are 12 years later and I've worked with some incredible brands.
Steve Folland:
Wow. So you were a Creative Director, not a photographer, but that's what you were just sharing to experiment with Instagram then?
Bal Bhatla:
Yes. As a Creative Director, let's say I was always the visual person. I worked with a copywriter, so they would write the words, I would come up with the lovely visuals. And then through Instagram, I was just experimenting with stuff, and I just found London as my subject going in and out of work. But yeah, definitely not a photographer for the first couple of years on Instagram. It was my day to day vlog, I'd say. And then it was when I started to get those clients, and I think a really important thing to mention is that Instagram gave me a helping hand in that, by putting me on the suggested user list. Which I don't know if you know what that is, but back in the day, when you were engaging with Instagram or, if you were someone who was on there everyday, they put you on this suggested user list, which basically would give you so many followers. I remember I went on it for two weeks and I got like 30,000 followers. So that certainly helped as well.
Steve Folland:
And then, so these massive clients, Lonely Planet, Adidas Jaguar. Did you have any contact with them before, as in, did they know of you via your job or were they simply searching on Instagram or exploring Instagram just the same way you were in a way probably and discovered your work?
Bal Bhatla:
Yes. I mean, that was kind of my hope because being a Creative Director, a lot of the projects that I started to work on started to focus upon these influencers, but they weren't necessarily living on Instagram at the time, they were more doing blogs. What was it called? I can't remember the blog name now, but there was a blog site. So we were getting people who had followers of a certain amount to start working on the campaigns. And I was like, hang on, I've worked my whole career to get my chance to work with these gadgets and products, and now suddenly the project's all about these other people. So <laugh>, I was like, I need some of that action really. And that's kind of what I was allowed to do, with the first few clients anyway. But just with the Creative Directors hat on, moving towards that more photographic goal is what was happening in the earlier stages
Steve Folland:
And you were taking on those clients whilst still working full time?
Bal Bhatla:
Yes. So at that point, I went freelance. I still freelanced as a kind of senior creative, so less responsibility as I transitioned onto becoming full-time. So making sure that I was still doing some advertising stuff, but then also as I was establishing myself as a photographer and being able to go full-time, that was how the transition happened.
Steve Folland:
So those first few clients found you, but once you made that decision to go full-time, did you go in search of clients?
Bal Bhatla:
No, it's absolutely surreal that I've been able to hold a career for 12 years now when I look back, and not have to apply for anything, but there's a backend to that, there is a thinking to that, and I would never advise it to anyone in the same way, that I had a great job in advertising and I was constantly employing freelancers and looking at them from afar with this kind of, gosh, they're making so much money. They get to swan in here and swan out working on the cool projects. But I just always feared it. I was like, no, I need to have a job locked down. But low and behold through these opportunities with the first clients, it really gave me faith in being able to use my past experience and mix it in with what I was gonna start doing with photography. And you have to remember that for the first few years, everything I was doing was with a smartphone. So I think that was part of the photographic revolution, that really opened the doors to allow everyone to do photography back then, because I think that's what scared me from it. Initially,
Steve Folland:
In terms of Instagram, would you be posting everyday? What were you doing?
Bal Bhatla:
Originally, I was experimenting with everything and anything, and I was using it as quite a creative platform. So I was doing stop motion stuff. I was using different lenses. I was using it as a very kind of experimental visual platform, very much with an advertising head on as well. So if it was Valentine's coming up, suddenly I'd be doing Valentine's content. And if it was Christmas, I'd be doing Christmas, but it wasn't very personal, I'd say. And then it was only when I found a few street photographers and mixed it with a kind of HDR style, I came up with this unique look and feel, that I was able to achieve just with my phone and also just being a street photographer with a smartphone allows you to be like extra discreet than you could be with a big camera.
Bal Bhatla:
So I became very popular for shooting stuff on the London underground. And that was mainly because that was the only opportunity I had going to and from work at the time <laugh>, but it became a really popular series. It's a body of work that I'm still working on to this day. Because I just think it's so iconic to have such a great volume of work of the London underground. I love looking at live photos of it from like the 1960s and stuff. If you look at the signage, you look at the people, you look at the fashion, the typography, it's a whole other world, and I'm trying to just hold onto something like that or build something like that myself.
Steve Folland:
So you said that you had good knowledge of working with clients, big clients for that matter. What would you say were the key things that made those relationships successful?
Bal Bhatla:
Just being able to speak the language was quite helpful. Early on, there was a very tight community with Instagram, so when a campaign would come around, there might be three or four of us involved. And as that began to happen, people would reach out to me, and ask me questions like, 'Oh, Bal, they've asked for a mood board. What's a mood board?' And they'd be speaking a language that I would understand. Also, I was interested in how clients would choose me knowing that over time, it became a lot more competitive and, that is actually what they said to me, 'We felt confident in the way that you spoke back to us'. One or two were just like, 'We were most happy that you were like the most expensive as well, which gave us confidence', which is quite interesting to learn.
Steve Folland:
And actually that's an interesting point, because I was going to say, if you were any sort of amateur photographer or illustrator or whatever, and had never worked in that industry before, then you wouldn't have a clue as to what to charge, whereas actually you must have had a pretty good idea of what these sort of brands were used to paying.
Bal Bhatla:
Oh yeah. I think that's what was quite insightful for me as well. And I could see if they were, <laugh> taking advantage, or not, and I'd helped a lot of friends with that advice as well, because working with a car brand and them offering you £500 seemed like a dream to some people who, their day job was a roofer and all of a sudden they too had been given 30,000 followers. So brands are looking at them and he was like, I don't know what to do. So there was some people who I really helped guide through that. I think some brands knew that they were able to take advantage because there were a lot of people out there who didn't understand the jargon.
Bal Bhatla:
So I was lucky to be able to speak the language. And often on occasion I was also, and this is the thing that I really loved, was being able to suggest things to the brief, trying to make them better for both of us. If there was true collaboration then it was great. I found this more at the earliest stages, that clients were open to hearing and changing briefs. For example, one time, I think it was the launch of the new iPhone for Vodafone. And they approached me to showcase the new phone and how good it would be. They were like, oh, we'll put you in the London Eye for the experience and you can get some great shots.
Bal Bhatla:
And I looked on Instagram and there'd been plenty of people on the London Eye. So there's not that much to talk about once the shots have been done or they're not that unique. So I thought, something I want to do, and I think that my followers would like to see, would be to test out the iPhone in a helicopter ride over London. So I got back to them with that suggestion. As a campaign, that's a cool campaign. Send up a couple of guys with the new iPhone and see how good it shoots. And I sent a real budget with it, and at first the agency were like, 'Oh, thanks, but, you know, we haven't got the budget for it'. And I was like, 'Okay, that's fine. You know, I'm not going to do it in the London Eye because I don't think that's very engaging', but then low and behold a month later, they get back to me with the budget and they were really excited to work on it.
Bal Bhatla:
And they internally were very like happy with it. And so they decided to showcase it and we did a Metro wrap as well. So one of my days on the way to work, I open up the paper and see my photos on the inside cover of the Metro. It was amazing. So being able to use that experience when clients are willing to listen to suggestions is something that I do even to this very day. And that's something I really love about it, being able to combine both. But that's why I call myself a Photographer and a Creative Director because I like to give that input as well.
Steve Folland:
Yeah. And it also sounds like you're confident enough to stand your ground or even to walk away from that project, for example.
Bal Bhatla:
I think that's something in the golden era which I'll call it, where I was saying no a lot more than yes. Some of the things that I said no to now I do actually regret, but there was a reason I didn't.
Steve Folland:
So you call it the golden era. So how have things changed over those 12 years?
Bal Bhatla:
Yes. So I think the thing that I began to notice is that over time, it was the conversion rate of a brief turning into, let's say a contract, so then you know that the project's gonna happen. So over time I think they noticed that people could make a living through social media, there became a lot more competition. And therefore I found a lot of the projects that I was saying no to my friend would be working on them. And maybe because I was doing it full-time, it wouldn't cover my costs, but for someone who's doing it as a part-time extra cash, that's where I began to have to double think, hang on, so am I so privileged now to say no to everything?
Bal Bhatla:
Or do I have to be a bit smarter in my approach because I have to pay the bills. Right? So over the years, I noticed there's a lot more people who got into it, so there was a lot more competition. So I just had to decide what I wanted to do. Again, you point your work towards the kind of work you want to attract. And so I just naturally found my myself moving into night photography. And this was mainly a result of me transitioning from a smartphone to a big camera <laugh> and that all happened actually on the back of a very cool project I worked on with Lacoste, and it was to launch a new fragrance, but I was able to talk about my photography through the campaign.
Bal Bhatla:
And then at the end of the campaign, the client really loved the images that I'd produced and asked if they could put them in all the stores across Europe. And there was a very big cheque that was written. And then I was like, 'That's amazing'. However, at the time a smartphone photo could only go up the size of maybe not even A4. And so it was literally that day I went out and I was like, 'Right, I need to get myself a big camera now' <laugh> No more this smartphone business, as much as I prided myself on being a smartphone photographer. You learn the hard way sometimes.
Steve Folland:
So that was the trigger to start doing night photography, you said?
Bal Bhatla:
Yeah. When I remember, I picked it up just before I went on a holiday and being able to shoot at night, I was just like, wow. It didn't connect in my mind that I hadn't been shooting at night at all. And then I was like, wow, now I can shoot at night, the story can continue. It doesn't all happen during the day. And I just found that's where my niche was, it's either working underground or working at night, but always at the heart of my work is London. Like that's, the bigger story, the bigger mission. As long as that subject is within my work, that's what you'll find. And that's probably what attracts a lot of my clients. Because that's what I'll see in the briefs that come to me, it's allowing me to tell stories through a London lens almost.
Steve Folland:
Mm-hmm. So in the face of all that extra competition, how would you sort of distil down how you managed to stay doing what you wanted to be doing and making a living that you wanted to make from it?
Bal Bhatla:
Being freelance is a complete roller coaster, right? <laugh> It's not always easy. Sometimes I can have a million briefs and I'm thinking, wow, I need to open up a new agency here. And then there's times when it can be like tumbleweed and there's nothing happening, and those things can really affect your work as well. And at your most vulnerable, you start to see people you know doing really well and then you're questioning your work, and you can easily start trying to be someone you're not at those points. And I think again, having the experience of being a creative in a creative agency where there was lots of other creatives and you see other people perform better, you see other people burn out, for me I just felt like this is really not a race for me.
Bal Bhatla:
I'm not in a race with anyone else. It's my own marathon basically. And as long as I can keep my blinkers on to a certain degree in terms of that competitive level, I don't want to be doing stuff just because someone else is doing it. And I think whenever I just completely absorb myself in my own projects with stuff like that, I seem to attract the right kind of brief at the end of it. And like I said, it's not easy. It's not like I can do it all the time, but by not worrying about other people I've found has been the most helpful. And then just sticking to your own projects, be it the ones that you're getting from clients or equally as important are your side projects, your passion projects, which I think keep you sane, ultimately.
Steve Folland:
<laugh> in what way?
Bal Bhatla:
There was a time where I was getting a copy & paste on the work I was getting and it would be like, here's a product, do your London night thing with them, post three shots, post three stories. I take every brief as a creative opportunity that I should try to do something different with. Once I've established a budget, they don't have to be a certain amount, but if I've got what I'm happy with, I will go all in to try and just produce something new or innovative, so that I've learnt something as well as created the best thing I can for the campaign. There was a time when just going through these similar projects back and forth, I literally wanted to pack it all in, but what keeps you sane is your little passion projects, your side projects, because that's what really allows me to continue to grow outside of those briefs as well.
Bal Bhatla:
So, I have my YouTube channel which allows me to share my knowledge and tips on photography and anything really, it's a channel that allows me to share any creative story that I want to tell. And that's what I use my social outlets for. But within that, side projects are collections of photography, things that I'm doing, short video projects that I'm working on, learning about the Web 3.0 space and, working on my first NFT collection. Just having a lot of other creative input to keep me inspired, which then also feeds into my creative brief. So I can go at them with fresh eyes each time.
Steve Folland:
Nice. Yeah. You said that there's been times when you've been tempted to start an agency because there's so much work coming in. Is that for real, you've genuinely considered it?
Bal Bhatla:
Yes. There was so much work, I just thought I've been doing this for 12 years and I think this was probably around maybe eight years in and then every year since, you get to a point and you think right, what's next for me? And then there were points where like, okay, I've done everything I can on my own, so why don't I get an agent? Let's see how that will progress my career. So I've worked with two very good agents, but sadly I was bringing in more work than either of the agents did. So that didn't really work. I think it worked out better for them than it did for me. <laugh> So always trying to see how you can grow. So that was one potential. And then it was, do I collaborate with people in order to offer a wider range of services so that in-house I could offer more bigger productions on things, like an agency.
Bal Bhatla:
But what I will say is that I'd always been asked at work to start my own agency and I just never wanted the responsibility of other people's mortgages. And I thought, it's a big thing to take on, a big responsibility, but when social media happened, it allowed you to have this nano agency, just you and the client and the brief, and that wasn't possible before, you'd always have some kind of middleman. So thinking back to that, that was the dream. Keep being able to keep things light. I don't need any office space. I can work wherever I need to work. And then if projects of a scale do come in, I have a very good network of people that I can rely on to get things done as well.
Steve Folland:
Ah, so you do sometimes collaborate to deliver more?
Bal Bhatla:
Yes. If it's required. I guess that was more back in the early days, but nothing of recent. I did a <laugh> little campaign for Adidas and the Brazil World Cup. So for that, we had to create bits of content for every game. I worked with a creative partner and we had to employ 10 art students to get the work done physically on time. They loved the experience. <Laugh> They were paid, let me say that. These were all when I was doing stop motion projects, so with my smartphone doing stop motion that used to take a lot of time, frame by frame, six seconds, 12 seconds, animations could take up to two weeks. So I would always have an assistant or someone to help cut stuff up. And then three more briefs would come through and you'd be like, okay, just not enough hours in the day to get it done. And at that point my creative partner went off to Australia to live and that's when I was, right, no more stop motion, just photography from now on.
Steve Folland:
Ah. And how do you go about managing your time, your day, your week?
Bal Bhatla:
<laugh> Great question. I always used to think, how do you focus on so many different things? Like when you want to do well at all of them? Well, that's what we did at school, didn't we? So I break it down into like a school timetable. Everything has a certain amount of hours for each project. And generally I'm very guided by to-do lists and timelines. I have to see things laid out in front of me. I need to know the night before what I'm doing the next morning and so forth, as long as things are in place, I fix to my timetable. Other than that, I do make sure that I have my two to three days out doing my street photography.
Steve Folland:
As in doing your own thing?
Bal Bhatla:
Yeah. Just out. And I mean, touchwood, doing my own thing is generally client work as well. So that's very, very fortunate. So, I've just recently come back from a holiday, which was a holiday in South Korea, Seoul, which was incredible. But you know, I tapped up a few of my favourite clients before going, who completely get my style, get my way of working and said, look, if you'd like anything done, I will be capturing every living moment while I'm there both on video and still, so I got a little bit of work while I was out there, but again, that old cliche, it just doesn't feel like work when it's what I just do naturally.
Steve Folland:
Okay. I'm not gonna ignore the NFT question because I often run from it because I don't understand it particularly well, but it sounds like it's a new potential way. For example, you have a print shop, this sounds like another way for you to bring in an income stream as well as exploring a new way of doing things right?
Bal Bhatla:
Spot on. That's a brilliant way of saying it, and in the simplest way, I think it's definitely a new revenue stream. As I'm putting my new print shop together, I'm also thinking how am I going to accommodate my NFTs as well? But also I think on a personal level, what excites me about the NFT space is just how it allows me to tap back into all the types of creativity I've had throughout my career. At uni, I got a degree as being a 3d artist, doing motion graphics. Then I worked as a designer, my whole career, and then getting back into filmmaking and photography over the last 10 years. And I think the NFT space really allows you to be an artist. So being Mr. Whisper in my print shop, you'd expect to see my street photography, but I would hope, and the way that I move into the Web 3.0 space and the NFTs, I want to try to collaborate with other artists as well as just mixing my media up with my 3d skills, seeing how that works with my photography and just being a bit more of an artist like I was at art school I think.
Bal Bhatla:
That's my take on it anyway. So that's why I'm excited to be able to expand the Mr. Whisper brand as more of an artist. It could lead to merchandise that I could do because I've always been interested in doing some clothing or accessories. So I think this is the way that the Mr. Whisper brand could do it quite organically. So yeah. Nice new territory to explore.
Steve Folland:
Interesting. And you've said there, the Mr. Whisper brand, which I meant to ask about. When you first went freelance, were you Mr. Whisper?
Bal Bhatla:
Yes, I was.
Steve Folland:
So where did that come from?
Bal Bhatla:
So, Mr. Whisper originally was my graffiti tank. Back at school and art college, I was Mr. Whisper. And then when social media came along and you were like, 'Oh, you can't trust anyone on social media, don't put your real names. <laugh> They'll find you and know where you live'. So I put down Mr. Whisper on everything and then as it became my career, my income stream, it turned into a brand quite naturally. And it's funny because it's always been, even when I was working in 'Ad land', I'd always have my side projects where I'd come home and I'd make these Japanese style toys, but out of plush. I would get them printed. And then I would stitch them together, and I was intent on making a little Mr. Whisper series of toys. They were a little ninja series of toys. So it's always been this brand for me, and I'm just happy that one way or another, it got to grow and I've been able to hold onto it. And it's something that people remember. So it hasn't worked out too bad in the end.
Steve Folland:
When you then deal with clients, do they say, 'Oh, hello, Mr. Whisper' <laugh> or, do they actually know your name?
Bal Bhatla:
It's always the first thing that they ask in a conversation. It's a nice icebreaker as well. I tell you a funny thing though, is that when I left Samsung and went off to do the Brazil World Cup campaign and then came back, my old agency were the first people to send a brief through to Mr. Whisper, not knowing that I was the old Creative Director there. <laugh>. And I went in with my flip flops as Mr. Whisper, just back from Brazil with my creative partner, ready to take on a whole load of briefs for Samsung and then like, 'Hang on! Did we just see you in the meeting room? And what were you doing?' And it was like, 'Oh yeah, I've just been brought into work on another campaign as Mr. Whisper'.
Steve Folland:
That's great. Although that also answers one of my other questions, which was, I was wondering whether your relationships in your history within that agency had bought you work. Like often it's our network, whereas you've not really referenced that. So it feels like it's been more about what you've created and put out there, for example, on Instagram, rather than the people you've known throughout your career previously,
Bal Bhatla:
I've certainly had a few connections from my 'ad land' time. It's not been a hindrance. It's definitely been helpful. There's certainly some very cool projects that have come my way through being connected through 'ad land'. But what I found, I didn't do personally, I was missing a trick. I haven't been tapping into that network enough. And I think that is because I don't post enough stuff on LinkedIn. <laugh>, that's where 'ad land' lives. They don't actually live in Twitter or Instagram, that's kind of the irony. They do all the work for it, but no one actually lives on it. So when someone says the word to them, they're like, 'Oh, get someone who knows about it. Oh, Bal he knows about it. Yeah. He can come and do a workshop or he can do like a walk.'
Bal Bhatla:
I remember through one of my old colleagues, his wife works at Facebook and Instagram, so he was like, my wife needs someone to host a workshop. The whole of Instagram and Facebook are coming to London and they want to do a mobile workshop. So I did a mobile workshop for them. And that was a great experience, a great thing to put on my CV, a mobile phone masterclass with Facebook and Instagram <laugh>. But yeah, the majority of stuff has come just by posting organically, but again, it's posting organically, but quite strategically because you can easily get pigeonholed by following trends. Like I said, which is something I can't do.
Steve Folland:
Bal, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Bal Bhatla:
I think <laugh>, I've mentioned it before, but it's probably the best advice I was given just for my career, was just pace yourself basically. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. If you're taking your career seriously, just take your time. It's you against you, I guess.
Steve Folland:
Nice. Yeah. Because, I know you mentioned that particularly in relation to competition and keeping your eyes on your lane as it were, but it sounds like it also counts to work life balance. Like how do you find that?
Bal Bhatla:
I think firstly, I need to give a massive shout out to my wife <laugh> because she knows what I do and being on social is kind of that 'always on' culture. So at first, I didn't know when to switch off, to be honest, I was in a bit of a panic being like, look, this is my business. Why should I ever switch off? We just should keep moving. But you know, I did start to find I was burning out and that's when I just said to myself, look, I need to slow down. I need to make sure that I definitely take enough time off during the week. Don't spend too much time in front of the screen each week. Make sure I take time to go and do why I started this in the first place, sitting in my office thinking, imagine I could just go out and take photos whenever I wanted two, three times a week say, and then I'd make sure I had enough work. And then just staying true to that little dream helps my work life balance stay quite balanced. I do honestly feel very lucky with being able to do the things that I'm allowed to do creatively and with my family, and that's all through being freelance.
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