Life & Work with Mikel Bady

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mikel Bady.

Mikel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Everything started when I was a sophomore in college at Savannah State University. One day, I came to a group of trailers on the school campus of Savannah State. I was walking with a classmate that was wanting me to meet some advisers in the Journalism mass communication department. Known as the JMC department. My classmate at the time felt that I would be a good fit because of my voice. This is because the department has different ways to use my voice, such as radio, television, movies and the news. When I got a chance to speak with the advisors, they were more than happy to speak with me and welcome me into the department. I have always thought of being an actor or being in movies. The idea of being on the big screen is exciting. Even working on the news or radio. I like to create. In school at Savannah state, I was taught to create films, documentaries and conduct interviews. I had my on a radio show called the love chapter; my on-air personality name was smooth Souf. While doing the show every Tuesday and Thursday from 2pm to 3pm. I felt excited to run the show every week. I like hearing my voice on the live airways. As I continue airing the show, I had guests on my shows. That made the show more interesting. Being able to have people on the to interact with. I knew that I was meant to entertain. I made people that came on my show laugh and feel comfortable and welcome to be on my show. At times it felt when I was making the scripts. It felt natural, like it came easy to me. When I was in class creating films and conducting interviews, I felt happy being able to bring awareness to people’s craft. That was my main focus. I like to put smiles on people’s faces.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
sometimes the road is smooth and sometimes, things get a little tough. When I first graduated from Savannah State, it only took me a month to find a job in my career. I was hired as a photographer at CNN. I took pictures of the tourist that came to take a tour of the CNN center. Every 10 or 20 mins on the hour. from 8:45 am to 5:15 pm. I was employed there for a year in a half. Until the pandemic came. I was let go and furloughed. The big part of the job was to take photos. Because of the pandemic, the tours were no longer able to run anymore because it was a risk of the virus to spread. next job I had obtained was a real state photographer position. The job was something new to me I never took photos for a home before. My duties were to take photos of the interior and exterior of the house and to upload the photos to a website so home buyers who were looking to purchase homes could use the photos I took of the homes. That was cool to do. Of course, I used a DSLR canon and a 3D scanner. The 3D scanner was used to take 3D images throughout the house. It gives the home buyer an online walk-through online while they search for homes. I was experienced with working with cannons back in college. My next job was at Hertz car dealership. I took photos interior and exterior of the cars. I took separate photos of the inside of the car. I also took photos of the inside of the car with a theta 360 camera. While using the 360 camera, I had to duck down and let the camera do its work. it was kinda like the 3D scanner I used in the homes. I also had to take an outside 360 0f the exterior of the car. I had to hold the camera and do a full walk around the car. and I had to upload each car to the carvana website to be purchased.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Right now, I am a photographer at Atlanta Luxury Motors Kia. Better known as ALM KIA South. Also, I just join an acting and modeling agency called john Casablanca’s. I m looking to pursue an acting career. Such as commercials, movies, and television shows. I’m most proud of my accomplishments so far in my career. This is my fourth job in my career. Being able to work in my career means a lot to me. A lot of people get degrees and do not work in their careers. I wanted to change that. I began telling myself that I was only going to apply for jobs that only dealt with my field of study. I feel like when you condition your mind to think a certain way. You already have won half the battle. Your mind is the strongest organ. When you have mind control, you have what it takes to be who you want to be or what you want to achieve. I say what sets me apart from everyone else is my determination, my focus, and my drive to succeed. I want my career as bad as I want to breathe.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
I would like to give credit to all of my professors at Savannah state in the JMC department. Tracy Haynes is one of my favorite professors. He is such a great teacher and mentor. You can tell when someone is teaching a subject to someone by the way they talk about it or the delivery. You can tell that they enjoy what they do. Of course, I would like to give praise to Grace Curry. She gave me my first internship. She believe in me enough to give me a chance at an internship at the radio station. At first, I was looking for an internship at another radio station. I did not get the internship so at the last minute, I went to Ms. Grace. At first, she was not to fun of hearing that I was picking another radio station. She asked me why WHCJ 90.3 FM was not my first choice? I was honest and said I thought going to a bigger more known radio station it would be more of a different experience. Than a smaller radio station. She did understand what I was coming from. Luckily I was a part of the student radio station. It was one of the requirements along with having at least a GPA of a 2.75.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @mikelbady
• Twitter: @mikelbady
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF_Qp-N1t4Ba7uXshPVd-2w