There are several ways to grow your business as a solo freelance business owner. First, you can leverage your existing network by asking for referrals and recommendations from satisfied clients. You can also invest in marketing efforts such as social media advertising and email campaigns to reach new clients. Additionally, attending industry events and conferences can help you build your reputation and make valuable connections. Finally, don't be afraid to explore new opportunities and take on different types of projects to expand your skills and portfolio. By proactively growing your business, you can set yourself up for long-term success as a freelancer.

But if you want to learn more, watch the presentation 😀

This project is surprisingly old, it’s been over two years since we worked on it, but for some reason, I forgot to make a post about it. The company manufactures systems for indoor or outdoor home gardens and large pots to grow your herbs and veggies.

Our process involved taking technical drawings or photos and transforming them into detailed 3D models that could be added to stock photos.

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 tips to beginner freelancers.

Read on to find out how Mehmet used his skills and ambition to claim autonomy in his career.

On November 3rd, 2014, I finished my career in corporate life, there were a lot of unknowns, but I would blame myself forever if I hadn’t taken that step. I became a freelancer and set up my company. To be frank, I didn’t expect it to be this hard. The Turkish commercial photography market had a tough shell. With my business partner Gökhan, we tried hard to penetrate that market except for very few agencies (thank you, #eyedea); we were unsuccessful.

Meet Orca, the nimble electric cargo AV that goes where others can't. With its tiny footprint, slender profile, and high efficiency, it's designed to move countless smaller payloads with greater speed and agility, at a lower cost per mile, than any alternative.

For this project, Orca Mobility asked us to visualize their vehicle in real-life scenes.

Tuscanini Ice Creams were coming in pints; therefore, instead of cones, the sculptures would come out of pints. Also, we’d be adding concepts that are well known by the public as “Italian”; Colosseum, Pisa Tower & Gondola.

In short, we came up with the work below.
Brand: Tuscanini Foods
Agency: Heart Works
Post-Production: Mehmet Turan (35milimetre)
3D Artist: Emre Zorer

ZF is a global technology company supplying systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and industrial technology, enabling the next generation of mobility. ZF allows vehicles to see, think and act. And as autonomous vehicles are new, they require a lot of visuals to pass their message. As 35milimetre, we have been working with ZF for more than a year.

Lately, we have created some non-branded 3D vehicles for ZF to use on lifestyle ads.

From time to time, we get requests from client candidates; they are usually unsure if they should use photography or go and take the 3D path and get 3D renders. So how can you decide if you need 3D design and render or go with photography?

DRNX is a Sugar-Free Adaptogenic Water brand that 35mm worked from scratch almost with only a single technical drawing file and labels of the bottles.

Retouchers provide the final touches to an image to create the best they can be. 70%-80% of the quality depends on the photo; therefore ends at the photographer except for cases that require compositing. I regularly get cases that I tell my client not to spend extra money on me because the photo quality isn't good enough to receive satisfactory results. It will be a waste of resources.

You decided to create visuals your 3D visuals in 3D, you don’t have any or much experience in this genre. So what will be the cost?

The most critical part is if you already have the 3D model of your product. Even if you don’t have it, the factory which produces your products might have it. In that case, if you can convince them that you need these models, that may help you and the 3D designer. The second best option would be the technical drawings of the product.

So our first cost item is;

3D modeling cost: This is the cost of creating the 3D model for each item.

Some clients come to our website for retouch work from time to time, but they don’t yet have photos at hand. They dream of something, though yet don’t know how to achieve it. In such cases, I inform them of two choices as it won’t be feasible for us to fly to Houston or Sydney to shoot many product images. However, it’s very critical to show these both as standalone as well as in lifestyle images. In this case, we propose two options;

1. Organize a Photoshoot

2. Create 3D modeling of the product and render visuals

When I first installed Photoshop on my PC, my initial intention was to do things that could be done in a dark room. My flat at the time didn’t have enough space to set up an actual darkroom. At the time, I thought that I could do most of the things I could do in a dark room with a film scanner and this software. It didn’t take very long for me that in a digital “darkroom,” a person can easily surpass what is achievable in a conventional darkroom.

Now fast forward 21 years; I do freelance photography editing work (I like to call independent visual post-production work); I receive all kinds of requests. Most of the time, photographers and ad agencies have a good grasp of what is achievable in a digital darkroom, but now and then, I receive requests next to impossible. I’m not counting the demands we see on TV series or movies, which I can summarize as enhancement requests. Of course, these are not possible; if an image is very blurred, we can’t just make it camera sharp. I would have told you that it’s impossible though Google has some papers, and they are working on AI solutions to remedy such issues.

When you are an independent talent, you become everything. You're both the general manager and office boy. However, this doesn't mean that you have to do every task by yourself.

As a contractor, there are two main ways you can set your pricing. You can either charge your clients an hourly rate or a per-project flat rate for your work. So which one should you choose? There are benefits and drawbacks to each method, depending on the nature of your work.

Photography: Dima Bazak
Retouch: Mehmet Turan
Model: Elijah Denzel
Agency: Wilhelmina Sports + Fitness

CGI Artist: Emre Zorer
Post-Production: Mehmet Turan