We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jasmeet Bawa. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jasmeet below.

Hi Jasmeet, thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

I am now older than my parents were when they had me. While I always knew that they sacrificed so much for me, thinking about their choices as an adult hits different.

Oftentimes, I think we can flatten our immigrant parents into that single narrative of sacrifice. I mean, it is a real narrative. For most of my childhood, I watched my father work 60-hour weeks and I watched my mother run all around Jersey City to bring my three siblings and I to our various schools all while diligently managing a tight family budget losing against inflation and gentrification. Without doubt, I feel immense gratitude for this role they played for me, but as individuals they have inspired me through so much more than that.

Since I was little, I was enamored by my father’s storytelling. With his voice full of soul, he would tell tales of his days as a youth and of his journey to this country. Sometimes he scoffs at my desire to travel and vacation, but he probably doesn’t realize he’s the first man that took me around the world with his words! As the eldest child in his family, he wasn’t able to explore his passions of writing and poetry to the depth he probably wanted to. Somehow I still got the blessing to hear that part of his spirit shine through.

And speaking of light shining through, growing up my mom could DIY anything, including the extravagant curtains that adorned our windows. She would sew us the most beautiful traditional Punjabi clothing, alter any clothes I requested, all while serving Michelin star worthy meals. Her touch is golden. She is the first woman I saw bring life from nothing. She doesn’t share much of her youth, but she always wanted to paint. I wish I could see that side of her without her shutting down. Sometimes this drives me to go harder, if she couldn’t be free to make art in this world, no strings attached, I will.

Even if this world might not label them with titles and accolades, the truth is I come from a lineage of beautiful creatives. These are just a few of the things that my parents did right.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I work across photography, videography, writing, and creative direction. I think freely, I experiment, and I run into error codes often– all in the hopes of capturing the true essence of what I have been entrusted with.

I studied neuroscience and philosophy in college because I thought the human mind was a riddle I could solve. (It is a riddle, I did not solve it.) Following that, I taught science in a high school in the South Bronx; it gave me an outlet for my deep love for people and my curious mind. But over time, I realized I didn’t want to just keep explaining the world, I wanted to help people remember themselves in it. Ideally this could happen in a classroom, but amidst graduation requirements and underfunding, it was difficult. That’s when I picked up a camera. For a while, the two coexisted, but eventually I knew I wanted to give my creative work full attention.

My services now range from directing visuals at events, to shooting brand campaigns, to crafting personal portraits and short films.

For a while I was worried about my niche-less existence in an ecosystem of content creation that demands a singular niche, or at best a few very well-defined niches. But I know the through line between all my work is authentic storytelling and that’s a niche in and of itself. (Or so I tell myself.)

I’m most proud when someone looks at my work, be it a photo or video, and says: “That’s me. That’s the version of me I’ve been waiting to show everyone.” I don’t want my work just to be beautiful, although I do love that, I want it to move people to understand themselves or others better. Capturing the butterfly without sharing the mess of the cocoon, the past life as a fuzzy, hungry caterpillar… it’s not the full story. And that’s what I’m after.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Rest is not a choice, it is part of the schedule. This is true for everyone, of course. But as a creative… not only is it non-negotiable health-wise, but without rest, and I’d like to argue, without play, the results of what you produce also greatly suffer. Great work comes from deep rest and focus, and great art comes from the observation of the human condition. For both you need time!

I live in New York City and I come from an immigrant Asian family… this means you make your daily payment to “hustle” as if it was a debt you owed before you were born. Even demanding your worth is a challenge. Oh, you’re not doing that gig or asking for a higher rate? Yeah, there’s someone else hungry enough to compromise and do it.

If city life was bustling before, now our digital schedules are also filled to the brim. E-mail, social media, iMessage… they’re 24/7. Globalization is a positive truth of our world, but it also means our reality becomes more Daliesque with melted time zones and blurred understandings of “out of office.”

There was a period of time this year I said yes to every gig that came my way. It wasn’t even out of lack mentality entirely, although the thought of New York City rent never leaves your mind, but out of excitement for the types of projects I’d capture— a friend’s successful nightlife series, one of South Africa’s leading musicians, a revered Young Lords member at a community gathering.

But the creative juices were on E. I stumbled through the gigs and grew frustrated at my dry well of ideas during editing. The people who I had worked with before were surprised at what I produced, and so was I. For a few moments, I thought I had lost my spark entirely, but I knew that wasn’t it. And kindly my friends reminded me that wasn’t true.

I had pushed myself to rest in the maintenance sense but not as an artist. Rest for an artist means distance from our work to journal, it means watching new and old movies, reading a book that has nothing to do with our field, watching a child solve a problem in a way you would never, ever try to, or a long walk with no headphones or destination. We don’t need that just for our mood— it’s what drives the new, fresh, unique twist we’re always being asked for. To capture emotion, story, trends in our work we need to engage with the world out of our screen and limited fields. In the past, painters, like Dali, were inspired by engaging with contemporary ideas of science, not just their art, or the art of others. They weren’t shuttered into the dark tunnel of competitive brand analysis mode all the time.

So when the agency head schedules that third meeting or the project manager asks for just one more asset, sometimes it’s not a big deal, we’re all at work, and sometimes creating a solid piece of creative work as if it were another spreadsheet… it’s just not possible until a good night’s sleep or time away for the brain to refuel.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Alright, so walk with me. Back in 2023 I’m still teaching high school, I’m carrying around this little Ricoh GRIII for street photography. I post the photos on Instagram whenever I feel like it, and since I don’t really post much else, most people just know me as “the girl who takes photos”.

Then I move into a new apartment in Brooklyn, and my roommate — who’s an amazing DJ — goes, ‘Jas, I know you like taking photos, want to shoot my party this weekend?’”

I ask everyone whose work I trust which gear I should get. I use savings and rely on credit card installments I know I can meet to buy my first professional camera. It’s not after shooting the party and sending in the photos that I even learned that my roommate intended to pay me!

Looking back, I relied on my job as a high school teacher at that time to help pay for the equipment and all the services I needed. (No one really warned me how many subscription based services I would need to edit and transfer large files.) Without what people in the freelance creative industry call a “day job,” I’m not really sure how I could have kicked off my new career.

In a lot of ways it felt like a love letter to myself, one that I had no idea I was writing. Now that I rely entirely on my freelance income, buying new equipment isn’t as much of a spontaneous decision. And that’s okay too. I have to remind myself I’m just at the beginning of this part of my story.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://byjasbawa.xyz/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_jaslab/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmeet-bawa-46214b66/

Image Credits

First photo:

Foreign Kollection