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For the second episode of our solo talent interview series Talent Talks, we’ve invited Mehmet Turan; a photographer and post-producer from Turkey, to give his insights on setting up and running a solo business. In this interview, Mehmet talks about how he transitioned from a traditional work setting to self-employment at age 37 and gives valuable tips to beginner freelancers.Read on to find out how Mehmet used his skills and ambition to claim autonomy in his career.
Welcome to Talent Talks, Mehmet. Pleasure to host you on Opala Blog today. Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your work?
My name is Mehmet; I'm almost 50 years old, married, and have a six-year-old son. I studied Economics and worked at a student organization called AIESEC, which helped me travel and work abroad. For 20 years, I worked in different positions at various international ISPs, telecom, and technology companies. Photography was a serious hobby for me back then. After a time, that work became highly repetitive, and I realized I didn't enjoy the job anymore and didn't see a future, so I decided to make the jump. It took a couple of years for me to make a move, as there was a lot to think about, including a family.Although my initial plan was to become an advertising photographer, the market demand made me move to post-production, and most of my work now is retouching and manipulating images. In short, I help businesses by creating images to tell them about themselves and their products, guide potential customers to find connections, and motivate them to buy. I have been shooting photos for over 35 years and somehow retouching and manipulating photographic work for over 20 years.
Where are you based, and how do you find your location in terms of solo work / digital nomadism regulations?
I'm based in Istanbul, Turkey, but 97% of my work is international. The demand used to come from medium to large ad agencies, but in the last two years, I saw my client base change to photographers and corporate. Unfortunately, there aren't special regulations for nomads in Turkey. I'm a Turkish citizen and I set up my sole proprietorship as soon as I left corporate life. The advantage of working as a freelancer who makes earnings in a foreign currency is that you don't get affected by the economic turmoils in a country as Turkey is badly affected by the worldwide economic rises added to terrible management by the current government.
Let’s dive deeper in how and why you started doing solo work, shall we?
Like any job, if you don't really "love" what you do, or you don't have the enthusiasm, there comes a point you can't move any further on the corporate ladder nor feel the urge to do so. I thought I got stuck at age 37; I had very few choices; other job opportunities were limited and changing my corporate job probably wouldn't change the final result as I would work from nine to five at something that I didn't enjoy, get orders from younger managers until I get retired if I can manage that at all. I decided to take the plunge, though I had a family and had to consider our family's well-being. Therefore I took the beating for three more years, saved as much as possible, and finally gave my notice.