The Male Gaze Is So F**king Uncool

I was sat in the hairdressers chair, getting my 6 weekly maintenance done and listening to the salon girl chat. No conversation is off the table, and I’m here for it. A young woman sat in the chair next to me, telling the hairdresser about her photoshoot with her car (she loves her car). She had brought underwear from Ann Summers. Apparently she had asked the sales assistant for something “sluty but not too sluty”. At some point during the shoot she was hand cuffed to her car. I’m not sure why and I’m not here to yuk on anyone’s kink. But I bite my lip, I didn’t get involved. The photographer in me wanted to… but I know (believe it or not) when to shut the F up.

None of the following images are my own….

The Muse Collector

There is a particular type of photographer whose entire portfolio is 18-year-old girls, and every single one of them is captioned “muse.”

Let's call them the Muse Collector. They’re usually somewhere between 45 and dead inside. Their muses are always lying down. They are always slightly damp, as though they've been caught in a light drizzle on the way to the shoot, and they're looking up at the camera through their eyelashes like a spaniel who's eaten your sandwich. They call it art, and they’ll tell you about light for forty minutes if you let them.

We all know they’re uncool. Most of us have known for years.

But I ran a women's portrait studio for a long time, and what I learned in that studio is that a lot of women don't know why this style of portraiture is uncool. They can feel it, a bit like a draught. They just can't name it, because they've been looking at the world through the male lens their whole lives. Films, adverts, magazine covers and every portrait they've ever been told was beautiful were made the same way.

And once you see it, you can't unsee it. Which is a lovely moment, and also a slightly horrible one, because then you have to go back and look at everything again. I did. I unpicked the shit out of that until there was nothing left.

So I couldn't help but wonder…

How do you explain the male gaze to a woman who has only ever seen herself through it?

Two people who ruined looking for me (in a good way)

In 1972, an art critic called John Berger made a BBC series called Ways of Seeing, with a book to go with it. It opens with a line I think about most days: seeing comes before words. We look at things long before we can explain them, which is exactly why nobody ever thinks to question the way we look.

Then he said the bit that should be printed on every camera strap. In paintings, and in the culture that came after them, “men act and women appear.” Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. A woman, he wrote, “must continually watch herself,” and so she ends up split in two, with a little man inside her head doing the looking, “the surveyor of woman in herself is male.”

If you have ever sucked your stomach in walking past a shop window when there was nobody else on the street, you've met him. He lives in there, rent-free.

Three years later, in 1975, a film theorist called Laura Mulvey published an essay in the journal Screen called “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” and gave him a name. The male gaze. Her argument was that mainstream films are built for a straight male viewer. Men drive the story. Women are there to be looked at, and she had a gloriously clunky phrase for it: “to-be-looked-at-ness.”

Mulvey said the look comes from three places at once. The camera looks at the woman. The men in the film look at her. And you, in the cinema with your Revels, are put in the men's seat and made to look at her too, whoever you happen to be.

She's had her critics. Camille Paglia called it “utter nonsense,” and plenty of people have pointed out that not every viewer is a straight man. In 1992, bell hooks added the “oppositional gaze” to talk about race and who gets to look back. Mulvey herself revisited the idea in 1990. But fifty years on, the basic point has survived better than most of the films she was writing about.

Once you see it, it's everywhere

Think of Cameron Diaz's entrance in The Mask. The camera starts at her legs and works its way up like it's reading a menu. Jim Carrey's reaction is a literal cartoon, and you're meant to sit there having the same one. I was 16 when I saw it and I thought, mostly, that I should probably get a dress like that.

That's the trick of it. Being looked at just feels like normal.

And the numbers say it was normal. When the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California went through the 100 biggest films of 2015, women made up less than a third of the characters who even got a line. Of those women, 30.2% were dressed in something sexually revealing, compared with 7.7% of the men. 29% had some nudity, against 9.5% of men. So the women got fewer words, and fewer clothes.

Now go and look at the car advert where she's draped over the bonnet like a throw. Or the fitness influencer filming her own bum from below, which is the bit that really gets me, because nobody made her do it. Berger would say the little man in her head did. He's been doing the job for so long he doesn't even need a camera operator any more.

What the Muse Collector actually does with their camera

This is where I get to be a photographer about it, because the male gaze in a portrait is a set of decisions anyone can learn to spot.

They shoot from above, so she looks small. They tell her to tilt her chin down and look up, which makes her eyes big and her expression a bit pleading. They ask for the back arched and the lips parted. They crop at the forehead, or the neck, or somewhere much worse, so that what's left is a body with a face attached. They pick a model who's 18 because that's the youngest they can get away with. Then they retouch away every line and every opinion she ever had.

The question underneath all of it is who the picture is for. A male-gaze portrait is made for a man looking at her. She's being displayed to someone, and that's why you can feel the draught.

The giveaway is how the woman in it feels when she sees it. I've watched hundreds of women look at photos of themselves. When a portrait has been made for someone else, they go quiet and say “oh, that's nice.” When it's made for them, they burst out laughing and ring their sister.

Enter Emerald Fennell, with a bathtub

If you want to see the gaze turned round in real time, watch Emerald Fennell's films back to back. I did, and the whole world opened up like the deep heavy fabric had been removed from my eyes and I’d been handed a new dictionary. I could finally see the abstract thoughts floating in the back of my brain trying to find the disconnect of what I have seen and how I have felt my whole life. I could point to the screen and say “that is what I’ve been trying to say!”

Promising Young Woman (2020) won her the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Carey Mulligan's Cassie pretends to be blind drunk in bars to catch the “nice guys” who take her home. The camera stays with her, with her boredom and her fury, and it's the men who end up being watched and judged.

Then came Saltburn (2023), where the camera stares at Jacob Elordi the way the Muse Collector stares at his 18-year-olds. Close-ups of body hair, montages of people glistening with sweat, and that bathtub scene, which I won't describe incase any future possible boss reads this blog. Fennell said the cinematographer “squealed like a little girl” during it, and they had to edit the noise out.

And this year we got her Wuthering Heights, with Margot Robbie and Elordi again. Critics were split right down the middle. Dazed called it her worst film. Slashfilm thought it looked breathtaking and said the sexiest moments were close-ups of hands kneading bread dough, which, honestly, as a woman who has made bread (from a packet, just add water and let it rise), I understand completely.

Is Jacob Elordi's bum the female gaze?

Here's where I'm going to annoy a few of you. I'm not sure it is.

In 2016, the TV creator Joey Soloway gave a talk at the Toronto Film Festival that tried to define the female gaze properly. They described it as “feeling seeing,” where the camera puts you inside what a character feels instead of just showing you what she looks like. They also talked about letting the audience know what it's like to be looked at, and about women “returning the gaze.”

None of that is about which body you point the camera at. Pointing it at a man's sweaty torso is a role reversal, and I'll happily watch it with a glass of wine, but it's the same old gaze in a borrowed frock. Promising Young Woman is the one that makes you feel what it's like to be her. That's the female gaze. Saltburn is a hen do.

So why is it uncool?

Because it's boring, mainly. The Muse Collector's pictures are all the same picture. Same angle, same damp hair, and a different girl's name in the caption. He (yeah, I can’t be gender neutral at this point) isn't looking at her at all. He's looking at a fantasy he had in 1994 and casting a new teenager in it every Tuesday.

And because it's a lie we've all been living inside. As a 48 year old trying to say “you're 18 and being photographed from above? Handcuffed to a car in not too sluty ann summers?” The gaze moves on. And I look like the jealous old woman because I’m not being handcuffed to a car. Somewhere in your forties it just stops looking, and plenty of women I know describe walking into a room and feeling like a coat stand. If being looked at was the prize, then we've all been made redundant, and I refuse to accept that. (But also, kinda glad, the freedom is beautiful)

I'll be honest, it took me years to unpick it in my own work. When I started out I asked women to pop a hip and tilt their chin down like everyone else, because that's what a “good” portrait looked like. It was only after watching woman after woman go stiff in front of my lens that I worked out what was wrong. They were posing for him, the man in their heads, and I was helping.

let me just say that again. I was helping.

Now I talk to them. I shoot at eye level and let them move. I wait for the bit where they forget about the camera, because twenty years behind it has taught me people can smell a pose a mile off, and they lean in the second you stop.

The best portrait I can make of a woman is one she'd hang in her own house. Whether the Muse Collector would like it doesn't come into it, and if he hates it, frankly, all the better. Because his work is so friggin uncool, and I can’t wait for all 18 years, 25 year olds to 80 year olds know this too.

Sources

• ScreenHub: half a century of the male gaze (Mulvey, Screen, 1975; criticism and bell hooks)

• Fleur Mach: John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972), on the gaze

• Annenberg Inclusion Initiative: Inequality in 800 Popular Films (2015 data)

• Backstage: the female gaze explained (Joey Soloway, TIFF 2016)

• Slashfilm: the Saltburn bathtub scene

• Dazed: Wuthering Heights review

• Slashfilm: Wuthering Heights (2026) review

Going Analog: Trend or Movement?

I am 48 years old and last week I asked a chatbot whether you can freeze cooked rice. You can BTW.

I have been cooking rice since the Spice Girls were in the charts. At some point I knew the answer. Now it lives somewhere in California, along with the name of that actor from the thing and roughly half of what I walked into the kitchen for.

To be fair to my brain, it's 48, and it's been through a lot. But I've started to notice that I reach for my phone the way my nan reached for her cardigan, automatically and before I've even decided I'm cold. Somewhere along the way I stopped trying to remember things, because why would you, when the answer is in your pocket?

The one place I still remember properly is my journal. It's where I keep the day my youngest said something so funny I had to write it down on the back of a receipt and then copy it in. It's where I keep the bad weeks too.

And lately everyone seems to have found their own version of it. Film cameras, vinyl, flip phones, a canvas tote full of embroidery thread. My feed is full of people going offline, which, if you think about it for longer than a second, is very funny.

So I couldn't help but wonder…

Is going analog a trend, or a movement? And if you post about it, are you just performing?

Is it actually happening?

Before I get carried away, let's check this isn't just my algorithm having a moment. It isn't.

UK vinyl sales hit 6.7 million LPs in 2023, the 17th year of growth in a row, and it's 16 to 24-year-olds buying them, not men in their fifties guarding their Pink Floyd collections. Ryman says notebook sales are up 20% on the year before. Over in Chicago, one little stationery shop's sales went up 150% in a single year, and 1,700 tickets to a stationery fair, a stationery fair, sold out in 45 minutes.

Then there are the phones. Shopify's sales data for June this year showed feature phones, the old flip kind, up 99% on the month before, and corded landlines up 115%. The number of shops selling feature phones went up 303% in a year. Somebody, somewhere, is buying a phone with a curly wire on purpose.

The man who wrote the book on this, David Sax (it's called The Revenge of Analog), told the Guardian that “we desire more of the world than what's available on 20cm of glass.” I'd have that tattooed on my forearm if I could remember where I put the tattoo parlour's number.

Where did all my memories go?

There's a name for what's happening to my rice knowledge. Back in 2015, Kaspersky called it “digital amnesia.” Their research found that fewer than half of UK adults could recall the phone number they grew up with, and only 43% could remember their work number without looking it up. That was eleven years ago. I dread to think what the figure is now.

Psychologists have a fancier name: the Google effect. In 2011, researchers writing in Science found that people were less likely to remember something if they believed it was saved somewhere, and that they'd remember where it was stored rather than the thing itself. In fairness, I should tell you that the original study has had a rocky time since. A big 2018 project couldn't replicate it, although a 2024 review of 35 studies backed up the broader idea. So the science is a bit like me before coffee: right in spirit, shaky on the details.

And then AI arrived and made it all faster. Last year, researchers at MIT wired up 54 students to EEG machines while they wrote essays, some using ChatGPT, some using Google and some using nothing but their own heads. The ChatGPT group showed the least brain connectivity, and most of them struggled to quote from essays they had written themselves minutes earlier. It's a small study, not yet peer reviewed, and I wouldn't build a religion on it. But I recognised myself in it so hard it stung.

Because here's my problem with handing my memory over to a machine. My journal remembers for me, but I still have to do the remembering to get it in there. My phone remembers instead of me. One of those keeps the muscle working, and the other lets it waste away on the sofa.

The pen is mightier than the search bar

In 2024, Professor Audrey van der Meer and her team at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology put 256 sensors on the heads of 36 students and asked them to either write words by hand or type them. When they wrote by hand, all sorts of regions of the brain lit up and started talking to each other. When they typed, not so much.

“Such widespread brain connectivity is known to be crucial for memory formation,” she said. Which is a scientist's way of saying: if you want to remember it, write it down.

Again, I'll be honest with you. It was 36 students, writing on a touchscreen with a digital pen, so nobody actually tested a Pukka Pad and a biro. But anyone who's ever written a shopping list, left it on the kitchen table and still remembered everything on it already knows this in their bones.

This is why I'll never journal on an app. It's the slowness I'm there for. My hand can't keep up with my head, so my head has to wait, and while it's waiting it decides what actually mattered about the day.

Meet the Analog Influencer

She declared 2026 “The Age of Analog” in a video. She has an “analog bag,” which is a canvas tote full of craft supplies she takes out instead of her phone, and she'll show you exactly what's in it, in a reel, with a trending sound. Her journal has a $150 cover and has been photographed in golden hour more times than I've had hot dinners. Hobonichi, the Japanese planner brand, has been mentioned more than 1.5 million times on Instagram.

She's selling something, too, even when she isn't. That Chicago stationery shop with the 45-minute sell-out has a 40-person staff that includes a social media content team, and its co-owner calls social media “by far the most important driver” of customers through the door. One creator in the same story only started journaling because she saw a Hobonichi on TikTok.

So yes, there's a performance going on. Of course there is. You can't announce to your followers that you're spending less time online without spotting the joke.

But here's where I land, and you're welcome to fight me on it. Posting about something doesn't make it fake. I post my journal pages. I'm a photographer. If something's beautiful I'm going to point a camera at it, and I'll probably tell you about it afterwards.

The test for me is whether you'd still do it if the post got four likes and one of them was your mum. The Analog Influencer's bag only exists if it's filmed. My journal is mostly lists, crossings-out and handwriting I can't read the next morning, and nobody will ever see 95% of it. I'd still write in it on a desert island. I'd photograph it too, if I could find one bit of decent light.

So, trend or movement?

The cynic in me points out that we've been here before. Mintel was writing about a “switching off” trend back in 2010, and here we all are, sixteen years later, reading this on our phones. Most of the people in that Guardian piece still use WhatsApp. Even David Sax says most people going analog still use digital stuff whenever it's useful.

But I don't think that makes it a fad. Over a third of UK teenagers in one survey said social media should be banned for under-16s, which is a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas and then asking for extra stuffing. A whole generation that has never known life without a screen is paying good money for a phone with buttons and a record player. They aren't nostalgic for anything. They've just tried the other way and they're knackered.

Here's my take. The aesthetic is a trend. The craft totes and the golden-hour Hobonichis will be gone by the time my daughters are my age, replaced by whatever looks cute next. Underneath the aesthetic there's something that looks a lot more like a movement to me. People are fed up with handing their attention and their memory over to a slab of glass, and they're trying, a bit clumsily and often on camera, to take some of it back.

As for me, I'm keeping the phone. I'll still ask a chatbot about the rice. But I'm writing down the funny thing my daughter said before I look anything up, because I'd quite like to still know it when I'm 80.

Sources

• Fortune: Gen Z resurrects the analog economy (UK vinyl, Survation teen survey)

• NationalWorld: Ryman notebook sales up 20%

• Chicago Sun-Times: stationery shops, Hobonichi and social media

• Shopify: shoppers go analog (June 2026 sales data)

• The Guardian, via inkl: the people turning away from smartphones (David Sax quotes)

• Gulf Today / Tribune News Service: influencers adopt the analog lifestyle

• Euronews: Kaspersky digital amnesia study, 2015

• Wikipedia: the Google effect, original study and replication attempts

• Psychology Today: the MIT “Your Brain on ChatGPT” study

• Frontiers: handwriting boosts brain connectivity more than typing (NTNU, 2024)

Getty Images Is Bankrupt. Is Stock Photography Next?

Getty Images emailed me today to tell me it's going bankrupt, and that I'm not to worry about it.

It's the corporate version of a man ringing to say he's moving back in with his mum, but the relationship is absolutely fine. Business as usual, they said. Keep uploading, the royalties will keep coming, nothing to see here.

I've spent more than two decades in this industry, and for most of them Getty has been its grand dame: the archive, the gallery on Eastcastle Street, the photo of every red carpet you've ever seen. So I couldn't help but wonder…

When everyone has millions of images at their fingertips, what's a stock photo actually worth? And is uploading to stock libraries still worth a photographer's time?

What actually happened

On 12 October, Getty announced that the Getty family and Koch Equity Development would put in up to $533 million to take the company private, through something called a prepackaged Chapter 11. Prepackaged means the big creditors agreed the plan before anyone set foot in court, which is why everyone's talking in weeks rather than years. The agreement set today, 21 October, as the deadline for proceedings to begin.

The numbers read like a very messy divorce. At the end of June, Getty was carrying about $2.1 billion of debt. On the Friday before the announcement, the stock market valued the entire company at $20.74 million. It owed roughly a hundred times what it was worth.

It used the grace period on interest payments due in September, and both Moody's and S&P downgraded it into junk territory. Anyone still holding Getty shares gets nothing.

Most of this is about debt. Getty and Shutterstock had planned a $3.7 billion merger and abandoned it in June, after a UK regulator set conditions. Pile on the legal bills and a stock image business being chewed up by AI, and you've got your Chapter 11.

To be fair to Getty, Chapter 11 is a restructure, so the lights stay on. This is a business that brought in about $981 million in 2025 and paid out more than $220 million in royalties. Its library holds over 645 million images and videos. That's a lot of photos to own while you're asking your family for a loan.

Nobody I know buys stock photos any more

I make websites and social content for businesses for a living, and I honestly can't remember the last time I went to a stock site and paid for a photo. Canva has a library built in. So does Squarespace, and so does CapCut, and most of it comes with subscriptions people are already paying for.

Meet the Canva Queen. She runs a salon in Hoole, does her own socials on a Sunday night with a glass of red, and has never once in her life typed gettyimages.com into a browser. She doesn't want a photograph. She wants Thursday's post done before the kids need feeding, and whatever picture gets her there fastest, inside the app she's already got open, wins.

Before anyone emails me: yes, those bundled images still come with licences and small print. But the buying has moved somewhere else, and Getty was still standing in the old shop.

Then AI turned up

If Canva changed where people get their pictures, AI is asking whether a lot of those pictures need to exist at all.

A coffee cup on a wooden desk. A woman in a blazer laughing at a salad. Type it in and you've got one in seconds, and nobody had to hire a model or buy a salad.

There are still big, unresolved questions about copyright and consent, and AI is a messy stand-in for a real photographer. For the generic stuff, though, it's competition, and it's cheap.

Which leaves photographers with an awkward question to answer. If an image is easy to find, easy to swap and easy to generate, what exactly are we charging for? The kit? The hours we spent on it? I think we all know the answer was never either of those.

The bit of Getty that's still growing

Buried in Getty's own numbers is the most interesting thing about the whole mess.

According to its 2025 annual report, about 75% of its revenue came from exclusive content. Its editorial business, the news, sport, entertainment and archive pictures, grew 6.9% that year, while the creative side, the stock-style stuff, crept up 0.7%. In the second quarter of this year, editorial kept growing and creative went backwards. Getty's investor presentation this month told the same story, with demand softening at iStock while editorial carried on growing. Video's doing nicely too: 39 million clips by the end of June, up 11.7% on the year.

You can't generate George Clooney on the red carpet in Venice last month. Well, you can, but it would be a lie. A photograph of something that actually happened is worth money precisely because it happened. Same goes for an archive shot of a street that's long gone, or a brand shoot of the actual woman who actually runs the business. The weeping mother of the bride, God love her, can't be prompted into existence.

My money says the value in photography follows whatever can't be faked, and drains out of everything that can.

Less than a dollar a pop

Getty's own contributor information puts royalties at somewhere between 15% and 45%, depending on your deal, and admits that a single licence can sell for less than a dollar.

Meet the Stock Hopeful. She's read a blog about passive income. She plans a shoot, buys props from B&M, styles a flat lay of a laptop and a succulent, edits it, keywords it, uploads it and waits. It might sell for years. It might sell once, in 2028, for 38 cents. It might sit there forever, like the treadmill in the spare room.

If you've already got a big, commercially sharp portfolio and years of sales behind you, I can see it still adding up. Starting from scratch today, I'd want some very convincing numbers before I gave it hundreds of hours, because that flat lay is up against a library of 645 million images and whatever somebody can generate before the kettle's boiled.

So is Getty finished?

I doubt it. It still has archives nobody else has, the licensing machinery, decades of relationships and a news business that's growing, and businesses spent close to a billion dollars with it last year. The restructure is about a company that borrowed far too much. The technology is a separate problem, nibbling away at one half of what it sells. The two are related, and they're also different.

To me, Getty going bust looks like an old business that spent decades selling access to pictures, in a world that now has pictures coming out of its ears.

I've watched this industry go from film to digital, through Weekend Canon Man and the iPhone and Instagram, and now this. Every time the kit changed, the people who were good at noticing things kept working, and the people selling generic stuff in bulk had a much harder time of it.

For years, photographers got paid because businesses needed images. Now businesses have more images than they know what to do with, and the ones they'll still pay for are the ones that couldn't have come from anywhere else.

Which suits me fine, frankly. I never wanted to be a laptop and a succulent anyway.

Sources

• Reuters, via Philstar: Getty Images plans bankruptcy filing, to go private

• Reuters, via Newswav: debt and market valuation

• Getty's restructuring statement (Newsshooter)

• Octus: missed interest payments and downgrades

• bdnews24: investor presentation, iStock vs editorial

• Black Enterprise: Shutterstock merger collapse

• DesignRush: video collection growth

• Restructuring support agreement deadline (Pasquale Pillitteri)

• PetaPixel: what it means for contributors

Is AI the New Digital Camera?

There is a particular type of man at every wedding. He's usually an uncle, occasionally the groom's mate Gaz, and he has a camera round his neck that cost more than the cake. Somewhere between the vows and the soup he'll wander over, peer at the back of my camera, peer at me, and say it.

"Wow. You must have a really good camera."

I did, as it goes. Several. Not one of them ever got itself out of the bag, or talked a terrified bride down off the ceiling, or worked out what to do when the whole day was forty minutes behind, the mother of the bride was weeping into a napkin and a toddler had removed his trousers during the speeches. Lazy bastards, the lot of them.

Gaz meant it as a compliment. That was the annoying part.

It's 2026 now and Gaz has a new line. He's started a business, possibly something to do with protein balls, and he wants to know why anyone would pay a person to make content when ChatGPT will do it for nothing.

And I couldn't help but wonder…

Is “I can just do that with AI” the new “you must have a really good camera”?

The birth of Weekend Canon Man

Kodak, bless them, invented the digital camera themselves in 1975. Steven Sasson's prototype was the size of a toaster, took 100 x 100 pixel black and white pictures and needed 23 seconds to write each one onto cassette tape. Annie Leibovitz did not lose sleep.

By 1991 Kodak had a digital system for photojournalists, and by 1995 a point-and-shoot for the rest of us. After that it went the way a hen do goes after the second bottle of prosecco, and nobody was counting any more. No film to buy, no processing, no lying awake wondering whether that frame deserved one of your last six exposures. Take another. Delete the rubbish.

I launched my photography business in 2008, which in hindsight was a bit like opening a video shop the week Netflix arrived. By 2010 the world was buying 121.5 million digital cameras a year, and a new species had emerged. Let's call him Weekend Canon Man. He'd read every review going and owned a lens the length of my forearm. He genuinely believed professional photography was a shopping problem, and that if he spent enough in Jessops, the pictures would follow.

Academics clocked it at the time, writing that professional-looking kit didn't come bundled with the understanding behind the picture. Owning a saucepan has never once made anybody a chef. Weekend Canon Man's camera could expose a photo beautifully. It just had absolutely no idea which photo mattered.

Then the camera ran off with a younger model

The phone. Obviously.

Camera shipments have fallen by about 94% since that 2010 peak, and compacts got it worst: almost 109 million shipped in 2010, and 1.7 million in 2023. The camera got absorbed into the phone, like a friend who moves in with a new boyfriend and you never see her on her own again.

These days around 92.5% of photos are taken on phones, and we took an estimated 2.1 trillion of them in 2025. That's roughly 61,400 every second, most of them of a flat white or somebody's chin from below.

Fair enough, mostly. More people get to tell their own stories now, and I'd never want to go back to a world where only blokes with expensive kit decided what was worth remembering. But two trillion photos a year is an awful lot of photos nobody ever looks at again.

And then, out of nowhere, film

Just when film had been read its last rites, people started buying it again.

Young people, mostly. Research published this year estimated that 35% of the world's 42 million film camera users in 2025 were aged between 18 and 30, people who have never once queued at Boots to collect their prints. Searches for analogue photography went up 41% the year before. When Ilford surveyed more than 14,000 film photographers across 110 countries, 71% said they'd shot more film than the previous year.

The factories can barely keep up. Kodak moved its film lines from a single shift to round the clock. Fujifilm sold its 100 millionth Instax in 2025. And Harman, who make Ilford film just over the border in Mobberley, Cheshire, have made their biggest investment since the 1990s, partly because Phoenix, the colour film they make entirely in-house, sold so well.

Look at what these people are choosing. You get 36 goes and can't see a single one. You post the roll off, you wait a week and you pay for the privilege, only to discover you cut your best mate's head off at her own birthday. It's the man who doesn't text back for three days, and a whole generation has decided that's exactly what they fancy.

Fujifilm reckons part of the appeal is getting away from likes and comments and actually being there. I think it's simpler and slightly sadder than that. When every picture is perfect and instant, none of them feel like they belong to you. A bit of grain and a light leak at least prove a human was holding the thing. We spent billions engineering imperfection out of photography, and now we buy presets to put it back in.

Which brings us back to Gaz

AI has done to content exactly what digital did to photography. Nearly half of UK small businesses now use AI tools, more than double a year earlier, and making content is the main thing they use them for. Among UK businesses using AI in their marketing, 83% are using the very same tool. So when Gaz says he can do it himself, he's right. Course he can. Weekend Canon Man could take a photo, too.

Photographers have already lived through the next bit. The kit stopped being the reason anyone hired us. The good ones survived on taste, and on knowing which twelve seconds of a wedding actually mattered. The ones whose whole pitch was "I own a better camera than you" are probably selling insurance now.

I use AI every day, and I'd rather walk to Chester in heels than go back to writing captions without it. But I find it very funny that everyone is rushing to make content that looks exactly like everyone else's, at the precise moment a generation of 22-year-olds is paying good money to not know whether their photos came out.

The camera never knew where to point itself. I'm not convinced the chatbot does either, and I'm fairly sure Gaz doesn't.

Sources

• PetaPixel: photos taken in 2025 expected to exceed two trillion

• Harman investment at Mobberley (Photolari)

• Kodak film production and the analogue revival (RedShark News)

• Simply Business 2026 SME Insights Report

• LOCALiQ UK State of Digital Marketing 2026 (via Whito)

From the original draft: Kodak, Digital Trends, Sage Journals, Statista (CIPA data), Fortune, ILFORD Photo, Fujifilm, Digital Camera World.

And Just Like That, Everyone Was a Social Media Manager.

Sarah Sadler - Red Shoe Makeovers.

Once upon a time, making marketing content required an entourage.

A photographer. A designer. Someone who could write. Someone who understood video. Editing software so baffling you needed a 47-minute YouTube tutorial and a large glass of something just to find the export button. And, ideally, one sensible person in the room who knew what any of it was actually for.

Then AI walked into the bar. And honey, it bought everyone a drink.

Now, before your first coffee has had the decency to cool, you can ask AI for 30 social media ideas, write the captions, generate the images, make a video, remove the background, write a blog, turn the blog into a LinkedIn post, turn the LinkedIn post into seven Instagram posts, and probably commission a jaunty little song about your quarterly sales figures.

Marketing has never been so easy to get into bed with.

And I think that's brilliant. I use AI. A lot. We're not exclusive, but we're definitely seeing each other.

But lately, sitting at my laptop and staring out of the window, I couldn't help but wonder…

If everyone can create content, what makes yours worth consuming?

Everyone's invited to the party

AI isn't coming for marketing. It's already here. It's unpacked. It's left its toothbrush in the bathroom.

Marketing teams are using generative AI for content, research, brainstorming, reporting and analysis. McKinsey's 2026 research suggests some organisations are already seeing creative productivity jump by two to five times. That's not a glow-up. That's a full makeover montage.

And it's not just the big brands. Simply Business's 2026 SME Insights Report found that 47% of UK small businesses now use AI tools… more than double the 22% of a year earlier! and creating content is the number-one thing they use it for.

For small businesses, this could be transformative. You don't necessarily need a copywriter every time you send an email. You don't need a graphic designer for every Instagram Story. You don't need an agency to hand you a spreadsheet of 30 inspirational quotes and a solemn vow to post three times a week.

The gap between having an idea and publishing it has practically vanished.

Which should make marketing better.

Except… I'm not entirely sure it has.

Welcome to the age of perfectly adequate content

Open Instagram. Then LinkedIn. Then Facebook. You'll start seeing it.

The beautifully formatted carousel. The motivational business post. The immaculate photo of a suspiciously gorgeous office. The founder gazing meaningfully out of a window, accompanied by a caption about resilience.

The same hooks. The same structures. The same five lessons. The same strangely enthusiastic punctuation!!!

It's the content equivalent of a first date with someone who has lovely teeth, a decent job and absolutely nothing to say. Everything is technically correct. Everyone is perfectly pleasant. And somehow… nothing happened.

Nobody stopped. Nobody felt anything. Nobody remembered who posted it.

The numbers back up the bad date. Gartner reported in June 2026 that 49% of US consumers believed generative AI had actually made content worse … rising to 57% among Gen Z and millennials. Further Gartner research found 65% of consumers think brands are churning out too much AI-generated marketing, and 57% said it has made them trust brand messaging less.

Closer to home, it's the same story. Optimizely's September 2026 research found that 62% of UK consumers trust marketing content less since brands started using AI. Two-thirds believe brands are choosing quantity over quality, and 59% say marketing content has got worse in recent years. More than half reckon they can usually spot AI content … and 67% find AI-generated images of people in ads creepy.

Creepy. Not a word you want on your brand's dating profile.

So perhaps the problem isn't that AI makes bad content. Perhaps it's that AI makes acceptable content ridiculously easy.

And when acceptable becomes infinite, acceptable stops being enough.

The beigeification of the internet

AI works with what already exists. That's part of its charm. It can spot patterns, organise information, analyse data, find connections and explore ideas faster than any human could dream of.

But here's the catch. When everybody walks up to broadly the same technology and says, "Write me five Instagram posts for my estate agency" or salon, gym, accountancy practice, photography business, restaurant, marketing company … the machine isn't going to produce something terrible.

Quite the opposite. It'll produce something perfectly competent.

And your competitor can ask it the exact same question five minutes later.

It's like turning up to the party in the dress everyone else bought from the same window display. You look lovely. So does she. And her. And her.

British consumers have noticed the wardrobe malfunction. In Canva's 2026 research, seven in ten UK consumers said AI-generated adverts are missing their soul, 64% said they're so obvious they're laughable, and 76% expect the future of advertising to look and feel like the same AI output.

This is one of the stranger consequences of AI. The cost of creating content is collapsing. The value of having something distinctive to say is going up.

And the industry is starting to clock it. McKinsey's State of Marketing Europe 2026 found European CMOs ranked branding as their number-one priority, pointing to distinctiveness, clear value propositions and creativity as the things that set them apart.

I don't think that's happening despite AI. I suspect it's happening partly because of it.

When everyone owns the printing press, owning the printing press isn't particularly impressive any more. The interesting bit is what you print.

And this is where humans become inconveniently useful again

Sprout Social surveyed more than 2,300 consumers across the UK, US and Australia for its 2026 Social Media Content Strategy Report. Their number-one priority for brands?

Human-generated content.

Here's the delicious irony. In the UK specifically, Sprout found marketers were making AI-generated content their number-one priority for 2026 …while consumers wanted human-generated content prioritised.

It's the classic couple who want completely different things and are both too busy to notice. We all know how that one ends.

YouGov and Meltwater add another twist: more than two in three consumers say they'd be less likely to engage with creator content if they knew AI had made it.

That doesn't mean we throw AI dramatically into the Thames. It means we might be using the most powerful creative technology we've ever had for the least interesting part of the job.

Because the difficult question was never "Can we make a post?"

The difficult questions are:

• Why are we making it?

• Who actually needs to hear it?

• What does this business know that its competitors don't?

• What do its customers misunderstand?

• What does its founder believe?

• What's happening inside the business that nobody has thought to show?

• What stories are sitting right under everybody's noses?

• What are customers actually responding to?

• What shouldn't we say?

And, most importantly of all: what can this business say that nobody else could convincingly say?

AI can help answer those questions. But somebody still has to ask them.

Maybe AI shouldn't be your content creator

Maybe it should be your research assistant. Your analyst. Your brainstorming partner. Your enormous, slightly unnerving second brain … the friend who's read absolutely everything and will happily stay up till 3am talking through your options.

Give it your customer reviews and ask it to find the recurring frustrations. Have it analyse six months of social performance and spot the patterns. Research what people are actually searching for. Challenge an idea. Find the holes in an argument. Generate twenty directions so a human can recognise the interesting twenty-first.

Let it take the boring, repetitive, time-consuming parts of marketing and make them faster.

Because that's where this gets exciting. The goal isn't to remove humans from the creative process. It's to remove enough stuff from the creative process that humans have more time to think.

And thinking may well become the expensive bit. The designer shoes of the marketing world.

So what happens to the Social Media Manager?

I don't think the job disappears. But I do think it's changing its outfit.

For years, businesses have paid social media managers and agencies to produce and distribute content. Twelve posts. Four Reels. Eight graphics. Three platforms. One monthly report nobody particularly wants to open.

Content measured by quantity, because quantity was expensive to produce.

AI changes that equation. If I can generate 100 posts this afternoon, selling you 20 posts a month suddenly becomes a rather strange proposition.

The value has to move somewhere. And I think it's moving upstream.

From "What shall we post this week?" to "What are we actually trying to achieve?"

From content calendars to content strategy. From posting to positioning. From production to ideas. From managing social media to understanding the business behind it.

Perhaps the future isn't businesses hiring somebody to "do their social media". Perhaps it's businesses working with people who understand them deeply enough to recognise the ideas, stories, expertise and personalities worth turning into content.

A strategist. A producer. A photographer. A writer. A researcher. A creative partner.

And, increasingly, AI sitting quietly beside all of them like a very well-read plus-one.

The irony of the AI revolution

For years, marketing technology has promised to make everything faster. Now it finally can.

We can create more. Publish more. Automate more. Personalise more. Analyse more.

And marketing leaders expect plenty more to come. Gartner's 2026 research found CMOs expect AI-driven automation of marketing work to rise from 16% in 2026 to 36% by 2028.

So we're about to be swimming in content. Which makes me wonder whether more is about to become the least attractive thing a brand can offer.

Because when everybody has the same cameras, templates, editing tools and artificial intelligence, the competitive advantage isn't the tool any more.

It's taste. Judgement. Curiosity. Experience. Context. A point of view.

Knowing when the AI-generated idea is good. Knowing when it's bollocks.

Knowing that the slightly wonky video of the founder explaining something they genuinely care about might be infinitely more valuable than the immaculate piece of content you could manufacture instead.

It's the difference between the one who's perfect on paper and the one who actually makes you laugh.

Perhaps that's the strange place we're heading. The more sophisticated our machines become, the more valuable genuinely human thinking becomes.

So no, I don't think businesses should stop using AI. Quite the opposite. Learn it. Use it. Flirt with it. Let it do some of the heavy lifting.

But don't mistake having the tools to create content for knowing what's worth creating. Because your competitors have the tools too.

And in a world where everyone can create everything…

I couldn't help but wonder: is having something worth saying the sexiest marketing advantage of all?

Sources

New UK research added in this version:

• Simply Business, 2026 SME Insights Report — 1,842 UK small business owners, July–August 2026

• Optimizely UK consumer research — 1,000 UK consumers and 100 UK marketers, September 2026

• Canva marketing research (via IT Brief UK) — UK sample of 200 marketing leaders and 509 consumers, May 2026

• YouGov and Meltwater (via Marketing Week)

From the original draft: McKinsey & Company (2026 research; State of Marketing Europe 2026), Gartner (June 2026 consumer research; 2026 CMO research), Sprout Social (2026 Social Media Content Strategy Report).

Are Blogs making a comeback?

I have a confession to make. I don't subscribe to bloggers. I don't trawl the internet for articles the way I would trawl TikTok shop. But there was a time, not so long ago, when I did.

Remember 2008? Of course you do, if you're a certain age. Back then, a blog was a diary. We wrote about our thoughts and our feelings, and we pressed "publish" with the reckless optimism of a girl who still believed the right person was just one post away. Gen X and the Millennials remember it fondly, the way you remember a first love: rose-tinted and slightly embarrassing. Even Gen Z, who were barely out of nappies at the time, are nostalgic for it. Who could blame them? It was a world where an algorithm didn't decide who got invited to the party.

But somewhere along the way, blogging got a makeover. Suddenly it was all SEO and optimisation, perfect flat lays and travel photos drenched in a vintage filter that made every sky look like it had been dipped in wee. And like all good makeovers, it came with a catch. We were herded, like cattle in very good shoes, toward the social platforms, which promised us something irresistible: a shortcut to our audience. Our people. Our like-minded.

And it worked, for a while. Then the menu got longer. Products. Ideas. Hot takes. Language. Cleaning products. Life hacks. A day in the life. Get ready with me. Story time about the time I… Calls to action. "What do you think? Tell me in the comments." Hooks, reels, short form, long form. Shadow banned. Gone viral. Ended up on the wrong side of TikTok.

Which got me thinking. When did social media stop being a cocktail party and become an all-you-can-eat buffet?

I couldn't help but wonder… what happened to us?

So I did what any self-respecting woman with a deadline does. I stopped wondering and started reading.

First question: did blogging ever actually leave?

Apparently not. It just changed its outfit. It started going by "newsletter" and moved to Substack, where it's been quietly thriving. Substack now has over 5 million paid subscriptions, though some of those belong to the same person, and as of April 2026, almost 100,000 publications were earning money there, up from 50,000 in May 2025. Blogging didn't die. It simply stopped calling itself blogging, like an ex who changes his name and starts doing yoga.

Second question: why now?

Because we're exhausted, darling. A survey of 1,000 Americans (No UK surveys that I could find) this summer found that 55% post less than they did five years ago, 51% say keeping up an online presence feels like work, and 47% have deleted an app because it caused them stress or anxiety. And here's the line that stopped me mid-sip: when people step away from social media, the most common feeling they report is peace.

Peace. When was the last time an app gave you that?

Businesses have noticed too. One Manchester marketer argued in January that social reach has become unpredictable and emotionally draining, platforms keep changing the rules without warning, and so organisations are rediscovering content they actually own. There's a practical twist as well: well-structured articles suit the way AI-powered search tools surface information. So the blog is back, partly because the robots like reading it. How very modern.

Third question: should we all be blogging just for fun?

There's a whole movement that says yes. They call it the indie web, a small but growing push to build slow, durable, personal corners of the internet that reflect their creators rather than what a feed rewards. One developer described how his own site became work, while all the fun stuff got shouted into the void on Twitter, and how he's now reclaiming his blog to bring his whole self back to it.

Which brings me to the purists, who'd point out that Substack still means letting someone else control your web presence. Even the escape route has a landlord.

So, should we do the thing without a purpose? Maybe the purpose is having no purpose. A blog for fun isn't a strategy. It's a pressure valve. A room of one's own, with a URL.

And yet. Not everyone's ready to leave the party. 16% of people said nothing could make them delete their social accounts. Perhaps the answer isn't breaking up with social media entirely. Perhaps it's a trial separation, where the blog is the place we go home to, and social is just where we pop out for drinks.

I couldn't help but wonder… after years of performing for the algorithm, do we even remember how to write for ourselves?

7 Signs Your Content Is Still Built Around the Male Gaze

The male gaze did not disappear.

It got better lighting, a trending sound, a ring light, a softer font and a content strategy.

It moved from cinema into advertising. From advertising into social media. From glossy magazine spreads into Instagram reels, personal brand shoots, wellness content, founder videos, fashion campaigns, beauty tutorials and lifestyle branding.

It no longer always looks obvious. It does not always arrive dressed as a perfume advert with a woman draped over a car. Sometimes it arrives as “empowerment”. Sometimes it arrives as “confidence”. Sometimes it arrives as “just showing up online”.

But underneath the soft lighting and inspirational captions, the same old question is often still being asked:

Is this woman desirable enough to look at?

That is where I think content creators, brands and women-led businesses need to pause.

Because content is not neutral. Images are not neutral. The camera is not neutral.

Every frame makes a decision. Every edit makes a decision. Every pose, caption, crop, sound, filter, transition and visual trend tells the viewer how to understand the person in front of them.

After more than 20 years working with images, first as a photographer and now as a content creator, I have learned that the most powerful content is not always the most polished. It is the content that understands the difference between being looked at and being seen.

And that difference is everything.

What is the male gaze?

The term “male gaze” is most commonly linked to film theorist Laura Mulvey, who wrote about how mainstream cinema often positioned women as objects of visual pleasure, seen through the viewpoint of a heterosexual male spectator. Her 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema became one of the key reference points for understanding how women are framed, watched, desired and objectified in visual culture.

In simpler terms, the male gaze is what happens when women are represented primarily as something to be looked at, consumed or desired, rather than as full subjects with agency, complexity and interior life.

And this matters because images shape how we understand ourselves.

Objectification theory, developed by Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts, explores how girls and women can learn to internalise an observer’s view of their own bodies. In other words, women can begin to experience themselves from the outside in, constantly monitoring how they appear rather than simply living inside their own bodies.

That idea is painfully relevant to social media.

Because so much of modern content asks women to watch themselves being watched.

Is my face right?
Is my body right?
Do I look confident enough?
Do I look too confident?
Do I look attractive?
Do I look professional?
Do I look approachable?
Do I look young enough?
Do I look effortless, but not lazy?
Do I look polished, but not fake?
Do I look visible, but not too visible?

It is exhausting.

And for women-led brands, female founders, creatives and business owners, this creates a real tension. You need to be visible. You need content. You need images, reels, video, personal brand storytelling and social proof.

But you should not have to perform for the same visual rules that have spent decades reducing women to decoration.

That is where female-gaze-led content comes in.

From photography to content creation

My background is photography. For more than 20 years, I worked behind the camera, photographing women through many different stages of life: confidence, motherhood, illness, ageing, grief, reinvention, business ownership, identity shifts and moments where they did not quite recognise themselves anymore.

That experience taught me something I now carry into content creation:

People can feel the power dynamic in an image.

They may not have the theory. They may not use words like objectification, gaze, representation or visual culture. But they can feel when an image is extracting something from someone.

They can feel when a woman has been arranged for approval.

They can feel when beauty is doing more work than story.

They can feel when vulnerability has been turned into an aesthetic.

They can feel when a brand says “empowerment” but the visuals still say “please find me desirable”.

That was part of the thinking behind my own project, Come As You Are.

The project was built around authentic portraiture, female empowerment and body positivity, but not in a glossy, slogan-on-a-tote-bag way. The women who took part spoke about confidence, illness, motherhood, body changes, identity, self-doubt and the fear of being seen. Some talked about wanting to find themselves again. Some talked about feeling most comfortable not being visible at all.

That project changed how I thought about image-making.

It made me much less interested in simply making women look “good”.

Because “good” can be a trap.

Good according to who?

Good for what?

Good because she looks like herself, or good because she has been edited into something easier to approve of?

That question now sits at the centre of my work as a content creator.

The male gaze in modern content

The male gaze in content does not always look sexual.

Sometimes it looks like over-polishing.

Sometimes it looks like making a woman appear smaller, softer, quieter or more palatable.

Sometimes it looks like turning her into a lifestyle accessory for her own brand.

Sometimes it looks like using her body, face, vulnerability or femininity as the hook, while her actual knowledge, story or authority becomes secondary.

And sometimes, annoyingly, it performs as empowerment.

That is the slippery bit.

A woman can be wearing what she wants, saying what she wants, selling what she wants and still be framed through visual rules that make her consumable first and human second.

So when I talk about the female gaze in content creation, I am not talking about removing beauty. I am not talking about making everything soft, muted, natural and serious. I am not saying women cannot be glamorous, sexy, funny, stylish, bold or commercial.

Beauty is not the problem.

Selling is not the problem.

Visibility is not the problem.

The problem is content that asks women to become objects first and people second.

7 signs your content is still built around the male gaze

1. Your content is designed to make women look consumable

This is the big one.

If the main purpose of the image is to make the woman desirable, rather than understood, the content is probably still working through the male gaze.

That does not mean women cannot look beautiful. Of course they can.

But there is a difference between beauty as expression and beauty as reduction.

Female-gaze-led content allows beauty to exist without making it the woman’s rent payment for being visible.

2. Beauty is doing more work than story

A polished image can still be empty.

If the lighting, outfit, styling, body, face, location and edit are all doing the heavy lifting, but we do not understand who the woman is, what she believes, what she does, what she knows or why she matters, then the content has become surface-led.

This is especially relevant for personal brands.

Your audience does not just need to know what you look like.

They need to understand your thinking.

They need to feel your values.

They need to know what you stand for.

Otherwise, you are just feeding the algorithm another pretty shell.

3. The woman is the decoration, not the subject

This happens constantly in brand content.

A woman appears in the frame, but she is not really the point. She is there to soften the brand, beautify the product, create aspiration or add lifestyle appeal.

She becomes a prop.

Female-gaze-led content asks different questions.

What is her role in this story?
What is her agency?
What does she know?
What is she choosing?
What is the viewer being invited to understand about her?

If the woman could be replaced by a vase, a candle or a beige linen curtain and the content would still make sense, we have a problem.

4. The camera lingers but does not listen

This is one of the clearest differences between objectifying content and human-centred content.

The camera can look without listening.

It can move across someone’s body, face, clothes, hands or environment and still tell us nothing about them.

Listening with a camera means the content has been built with context. It considers the person’s comfort, story, personality, body language, boundaries and message.

This is where my photography background deeply affects how I create content.

Before I think about the shot, I think about the person.

What are they trying to say?
Where do they feel awkward?
What are they hiding behind?
What feels false?
What feels alive?
What needs to be left alone?

Good content direction is not just telling someone where to stand.

It is knowing when the visual idea is starting to overpower the human being inside it.

5. Vulnerability is used as an aesthetic

We need to talk about this one.

Because online content has learned how to package vulnerability beautifully.

Crying selfies. Slow-motion staring out of windows. Messy-but-curated desks. Trauma turned into carousel hooks. Healing turned into a brand palette.

Now, some of this can be real. I am not dismissing honest storytelling.

But vulnerability becomes problematic when it is used mainly to create intimacy, engagement or emotional click-through, without care for the person behind it.

Female-gaze-led content does not use vulnerability as bait.

It gives people authorship over their own story.

There is a difference between sharing something true and being visually arranged as wounded for the sake of relatability.

6. “Empowerment” still depends on being desirable

This is where a lot of brand content gets itself in a twist.

It says “be yourself”, but only shows a very narrow version of what that self is allowed to look like.

Young. Thin. Smooth. Glowing. Stylish. Unbothered. Sexually legible, but not too much. Confident, but not threatening. Successful, but still likeable.

That is not liberation.

That is just a prettier cage.

Female-gaze-led content makes room for women to be more than desirable.

Tired. Brilliant. Awkward. Funny. Angry. Ageing. Soft. Direct. Complicated. Practical. Grieving. Powerful. Uncertain. Capable. Unfinished.

Women do not need to be visually perfect before they are allowed to be visible.

7. The brand voice says freedom, but the visuals say obedience

This is the one I want more brands to pay attention to.

You can write captions about confidence, freedom, authenticity and empowerment, but if your visuals are still built on perfection, performance and approval, your audience will feel the contradiction.

The words say: be yourself.

The visuals say: but make sure it is the acceptable version.

That gap matters.

Because audiences are more visually literate than brands give them credit for. They may not always be able to explain what feels off, but they can sense when a brand’s message and imagery are not telling the same truth.

So what does female-gaze-led content look like?

For me, female-gaze-led content is not an aesthetic.

It is not just soft lighting, natural textures, handwritten fonts and women walking through fields in linen trousers.

It is a method.

It is a way of creating content that asks:

Who has agency here?
Who is this image serving?
Is this person being flattened or revealed?
Is beauty being used as expression or as control?
Does this content give the subject authorship?
Are we selling by creating insecurity, or by building connection and trust?
Does the visual story match the values of the brand?

For women-led brands, this matters commercially too.

Because content that feels more truthful tends to build stronger trust.

It makes the brand feel more human, more specific and more emotionally intelligent. It moves beyond “look at me” and into “understand what I stand for”.

That is where content becomes more than output.

It becomes positioning.

The Red Shoe lens

My work now sits at the intersection of photography, content creation, visual storytelling and female representation.

I still use everything photography taught me: light, composition, body language, expression, atmosphere, editing, visual rhythm and emotional timing.

But I now use those skills in a wider content context.

Reels. Campaigns. Personal brand content. Founder-led storytelling. Social media visuals. Brand messaging. Creative direction. Content strategy.

The goal is not simply to make content look nice.

The goal is to create content that helps women-led brands become visible without performing for the old visual rules.

Content that can sell without objectifying.

Content that can be beautiful without becoming hollow.

Content that can be strategic without becoming manipulative.

Content that lets women be seen, not just looked at.

Because the camera is never neutral.

And neither is content.

The question is not just: does this look good?

The better question is:

What version of this woman, this brand, this story, are we asking the audience to believe?

That is the work.

That is the shift.

That is the Red Shoe lens.

When Your Content Flops: Stop Comparing Your Numbers and Start Reading Them

By Sarah Sadler | Content Strategist & Photographer | Chester

Sarah Sadler. Content Creator Chester

Let me set the scene.

It's 3am. My content is out. And instead of sleeping like a sensible human being, I'm lying there running through every creative decision I made, convincing myself I am completely terrible at this, and that I should probably just burn the whole thing to the ground and go back to photographing people for a living.

Sound familiar?

Here's the thing I've learned, not from a course, not from a marketing guru, but from actually being in the trenches as both a content creator and a business owner for over two decades: the spiral is not the problem. The comparison is.

The Real Issue With "My Content Flopped"

When we say our content flopped, what we usually mean is: someone else's got more likes.

But here's what we're not asking:

• More likes than what?

• Compared to whom?

• Against what baseline?

We're not comparing data. We're comparing feelings. And feelings — especially at 3am — are catastrophically unreliable metrics.

As a content creator based in Chester, I work with small businesses and founder-led brands who are producing content consistently and still feeling like nothing is working. Nine times out of ten, the content isn't the problem. The context is.

The Number Nobody Talks About

Before you compare your post to anyone else's — anyone within your industry, anyone with more followers, anyone who seems to be absolutely smashing it — you need to know the industry benchmark for engagement.

It's 3.7%.

That's it. That's the average across most industries. Not 10%. Not 20%. Not the viral numbers you see being celebrated on your feed.

(Unless you're a beauty salon. In which case — bless you — that space is so saturated that you genuinely do need to be more inventive. We salute you.)

Most business owners I speak to through my work — both here in Chester and beyond — have no idea this number exists. They're measuring their content against the loudest voices in their niche, not against any actual standard.

That's not strategy. That's self-sabotage.

How to Actually Calculate Your Engagement Rate

Here's where it gets slightly maths-y. Stay with me.

Instagram's text and image insights don't hand you your engagement rate percentage. For that, you need to do a tiny bit of arithmetic — and I promise it's worth it.

The formula:

Add up all your engagement (likes + comments + reposts + profile visits + follows + shares + saves)
Divide that total by your accounts reached
Multiply by 100
That's your engagement rate.

So if your numbers look like this — 23 likes, 53 comments, 2 reposts, 8 profile visits, 4 follows — that's 90 total engagements. Divide by 478 accounts reached. Multiply by 100.

You get 18.82%.

That post didn't flop. That post performed nearly five times the industry benchmark. But if you're just looking at 23 likes and comparing it to someone with 200, you'd never know that.

This is the difference between data and perception. This is the difference between strategy and spiral.

For Reels: Look at Your Like Rate

If you're posting Reels — and most of you are — Instagram does actually show you your rate breakdowns inside the insights panel. Look specifically at your like rate.

Anything below 3.7%? That reel didn't quite land. And that's not a disaster — that's information. Something about the hook, the pacing, the messaging, or the audience match wasn't quite right. You can work out why. You can adjust.

Anything above 3.7%? That content resonated. Study it. Understand what it did. Do more of that.

This is what I mean when I say most businesses don't need more content — they need clearer communication. Because once you start reading your numbers instead of feeling them, the path forward gets a lot less overwhelming.

Why I Teach This (And Why It Matters to Me)

I've been a photographer since 2003. I've run my own studio since 2011. I spent years creating content that got attention, good engagement, high reach, genuine interaction… and still couldn't work out why it wasn't converting into aligned clients or sustainable business growth.

The answer, when I finally found it, was simple: attention is not the same as alignment.

I was attracting the wrong people with the right content. Or the right people with content that didn't communicate what I actually did clearly enough. Understanding the numbers ….truly understanding them, not just glancing at them…. was part of what helped me see the difference.

Now, through my work as a content strategist and photographer in Chester, I help other business owners build the same kind of clarity. Strategic, psychologically-aware visual communication that doesn't just get seen … it gets understood, trusted, and acted on.

A Note on Being Kind to Yourself

You and your content are doing better than you think.

Not because I'm trying to make you feel good (although I am, genuinely), but because the standard you're measuring yourself against is probably wrong. The viral post you're envying might have a 2% engagement rate. The creator you think is smashing it might be attracting thousands of people who will never buy from them.

Numbers without context are just noise.

So next time you're looking at your 15 likes at midnight, spiralling … STOP. Pull up your insights. Do the maths. Compare yourself to the benchmark, not to someone else's highlight reel.

You might find out you're doing extraordinarily well.

Want to Create Content That Actually Works?

If you're a founder-led brand or small business in Chester or beyond, and you're posting consistently without seeing the results you want … let's talk.

I work from a content creator studio in Chester, helping businesses move from performative visibility to genuine strategic communication. Whether that's through one-to-one strategy, studio sessions, or content direction, the goal is always the same: content that attracts the right people, not just attention.

Because the best content isn't the loudest. It's the most aligned.

Find me on Instagram or get in touch to find out how I can help your brand communicate with more clarity and trust.

How to Plan a Content Shoot Day Near Chester Without Losing Your Mind

If you have ever turned up to a shoot with a vague plan, too many ideas and not enough structure, you will know how quickly a content day can go off the rails.

What looks simple on social media usually involves a fair bit of thought behind the scenes. The good news is that a successful content shoot day does not need to feel chaotic. With the right plan, the right space and a bit of foresight, you can create a whole bank of useful content in one session without frazzling yourself in the process.

At Red Shoe Studio, just 10 minutes outside Chester city centre on Whitchurch Road, I see how much easier content days become when the setup actually supports the work. Whether you are shooting video, recording a podcast, planning social media content or capturing brand photography, the difference is usually in the prep.

Start with the job the content needs to do

Before you think about outfits, props or camera angles, get clear on the purpose of the content.

Ask yourself:

What is this content for?
Who is it for?
Where will it be used?
What do I want it to achieve?

A content day for Instagram reels is very different from a day focused on website imagery or podcast recording. If you skip this step, it is easy to end up with a gallery full of decent-looking content that has no real use. That is a waste of your time, your energy and probably your money too.

Start with the outcome, then build the day around it.

Decide exactly what you want to create

One of the biggest mistakes people make is booking a studio or planning a shoot with only a fuzzy idea of what they want.

Be specific.

Write out a list of deliverables before the day. For example:

brand photos
talking-head videos
short-form social media clips
podcast episodes
behind-the-scenes footage
website images
launch content
client education content

This gives the day shape. It also helps you judge how much time you need, how many setups you want, and whether you need a photographer, videographer, engineer or just a strong plan and a good space.

Think in batches, not one-offs

A content shoot day should not be about creating one nice photo and calling it a win.

The smartest way to use your time is to batch content. That means creating multiple pieces of content in one go, grouped by purpose.

A simple way to do this is to think in four categories:

Core brand content

These are the essential photos and videos that represent you and your business clearly.

Educational content

This is the useful content that answers questions, explains what you do, or helps your audience understand your process.

Promotional content

This covers launches, offers, services and anything that needs to drive action.

Personality content

This is the human side of the brand. The details, the moments, the small pieces that help people connect with you as a real person rather than a polished brochure.

When you plan this way, you come away with a much more useful bank of content instead of a random mix of clips that do not really belong together.

Choose a studio that works with you

The space you choose affects far more than the backdrop.

A good studio can make the day smoother, calmer and more productive. A bad one can drain your energy before you have even started.

If you are planning a content shoot day near Chester, it helps to choose a studio that gives you flexibility. Red Shoe Studio is set up for exactly that. Based on Whitchurch Road, just 10 minutes from Chester city centre, the studio is available for photo shoots, video content, podcast recording and meetings.

It includes studio lighting, a huge beautiful window for natural light, free parking, WiFi, a kitchen and bathroom, so it feels practical as well as creative. Being based at Applegates Farm Shop on the A55 also means there is an on-site cafe and antiques shop, which makes the whole day feel a lot less clinical and a lot more human.

That matters. People create better when they are comfortable.

Plan your outfits, props and setup before the day

This sounds obvious, but it gets skipped all the time.

Choose outfits that suit your brand and work together visually. Bring props only if they genuinely add to the content. Think about the sort of setups you want before you arrive.

Do you want natural light or more controlled studio lighting?
Do you need a clean backdrop?
Will you want multiple looks from one space?
Are you recording a podcast as well as taking photos or filming video?

Making these decisions ahead of time saves you a lot of brain fog on the day itself.

Leave space for the unplanned moments

A good plan matters, but over-planning can make everything feel stiff and over-rehearsed.

You want enough structure to stay on track, but enough breathing room for the better moments to appear. Sometimes the most natural photos, the best lines in a video or the strongest snippets of behind-the-scenes content come from what happens in between the planned shots.

That is usually where the good stuff lives.

Do not ignore the boring practical details

This is the bit people forget, then regret.

A smooth content day depends on the practical setup as much as the creative one. That means thinking about things like:

parking
travel time
toilets
WiFi
refreshments
charging points
break space
time to reset between takes

These details are not glamorous, but they make a real difference. Red Shoe Studio was designed to feel more like a home-from-home than a cold hire room, which helps people settle in and actually get on with the work.

Why Red Shoe Studio works for content days near Chester

Red Shoe Studio is more than just a studio for hire. It is a creative space shaped by the reality of content work.

As a content creator and social media manager, I know how much planning, structure and flexibility goes into making content that actually works online. That is why the studio is designed to support the full process, whether you are recording a podcast with an engineer included, filming social media videos, shooting brand photography or using the space for a planning session.

It is practical, comfortable and easy to access, with the kind of setup that helps people get into flow instead of fighting the environment.

Planning your next content shoot day near Chester?

If you are looking for a flexible studio near Chester for photo shoots, video content, podcasting or creative planning, Red Shoe Studio is available to hire on Whitchurch Road, just 10 minutes outside Chester city centre.

And if you need support with the content itself, not just the space, I can help with that too.

Get in touch to enquire about studio hire or content creation support.

TikTok, YouTube, and the Death of Polished Content: Why Real Wins in 2026

Because in a world of AI Creation, the 2026 trend will be REAL reel content. Here’s why:

There was a time when “good marketing” meant polished visuals, scripted messaging, and a brand voice so safe it could pass a corporate background check.

That time is over.

Not because people suddenly became deep, thoughtful consumers of content. Let’s not get carried away. But because platforms like TikTok and YouTube have quietly shifted the rules of visibility, trust, and attention.

And if you’re still trying to show up online like a brochure with a pulse, you’re already behind.

This isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about understanding how people actually consume content now, and adjusting accordingly.

TikTok: Where Perfection Goes to Die (Thankfully)

TikTok didn’t win because it was polished.

It won because it felt real.

For years, businesses were told to present the “best version” of themselves. Clean branding. Perfect lighting. Carefully curated messaging. The digital equivalent of smiling through gritted teeth.

Then TikTok showed up and rewarded the opposite.

Suddenly:

• Messy behind-the-scenes clips outperformed studio shoots

• Unscripted thoughts beat rehearsed pitches

• Relatable moments drove more engagement than “high production value”

Which, frankly, makes sense. People trust what feels human. Not what feels manufactured.

And no, this isn’t just for Gen Z anymore. With over a quarter of users now over 35, TikTok has quietly become one of the most powerful platforms for reaching actual decision-makers … not just teenagers dancing in kitchens.

Why Authentic Storytelling Works (Even If You Hate the Word “Authentic”)

“Be authentic” is one of those phrases that sounds nice and means absolutely nothing unless you define it.

So let’s define it.

Authentic content isn’t:

• Oversharing your entire life

• Filming yourself crying in the car

• Pretending to be “raw” for engagement

Authentic content is:

• Clear thinking, expressed simply

• Real experiences, shared honestly

• Useful ideas, explained without fluff

It’s not about vulnerability for the sake of it. It’s about clarity.

And clarity is what builds trust.

What to Actually Post on TikTok (Without Losing Your Mind)

If your strategy currently consists of “I should probably post more,” congratulations, you’re in the majority.

Here’s what actually works:

1. Behind-the-Scenes Content

People don’t just want the outcome. They want the process.

Show:

• How you work

• How you think

• What goes into what you do

This builds credibility without you having to say “I’m an expert” every five minutes.

2. Quick Educational Insights

You don’t need a 10-part series to be valuable.

Short, sharp insights work:

• “Here’s what most people get wrong about X”

• “If I had to start again, I’d do this instead”

• “This is why your content isn’t working”

You’re not trying to impress people. You’re trying to help them understand something quickly.

3. Customer or Client Stories

Not testimonials. Stories.

There’s a difference.

Instead of:

“Sarah was amazing, highly recommend!”

Try:

• What problem they had

• What changed

• What the outcome was

People connect with journeys, not praise.

4. Trends (Used Properly, Not Desperately)

You can engage with trends without embarrassing yourself.

The rule is simple:
If it doesn’t connect to your message, don’t force it.

You’re building a brand, not auditioning for relevance.

5. Longer-Form Content (Yes, On TikTok)

TikTok is quietly pushing longer videos because — shock — people will watch longer content if it’s actually interesting.

Use this to:

• Explain ideas properly

• Tell fuller stories

• Go deeper than surface-level tips

Attention spans aren’t dead. Bad content is.

The Real Strategy: Consistency Without Burnout

Here’s where most people go wrong.

They either:

• Post sporadically and hope for the best

• Burn out trying to post daily with no strategy

Neither works.

Instead:

• Set a realistic content rhythm

• Focus on clarity over quantity

• Treat content like a system, not a mood

You’re not here to “go viral.” You’re here to be understood.

YouTube: The Slow Burn That Actually Pays Off

If TikTok is fast attention, YouTube is long-term authority.

And unlike most platforms, YouTube content doesn’t disappear after 48 hours like a forgotten New Year’s resolution.

It compounds.

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. Which means people aren’t just scrolling. They’re looking.

That changes everything.

Why YouTube Matters for SEO and AI Search

Search is evolving.

It’s no longer just:

• Blog posts

• Websites

• Written content

Video is now a major part of how information is discovered, indexed, and surfaced — especially in AI-driven search results.

Which means:
If you’re not creating video, you’re missing a huge opportunity to be found.

What to Create on YouTube (That People Will Actually Watch)

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to align with intent.

1. Tutorials

Teach something specific.

Not:

“How to succeed in business”

But:

“How to film content on your phone that doesn’t look terrible”

Specific wins.

2. Explainers

Break down ideas clearly.

• Concepts

• Strategies

• Common mistakes

You’re not showing off. You’re making things make sense.

3. Process-Based Content

Show how you do what you do.

This builds:

• Trust

• Authority

• Transparency

And conveniently removes the need for hard selling.

4. Blog-to-Video Strategy

If you’re already writing content, turn it into video.

This:

• Increases discoverability

• Gives people multiple ways to engage

• Strengthens your SEO footprint

One idea. Multiple formats. Less effort, more reach.

Optimisation: The Boring Bit That Actually Matters

You can create the best video in the world, but if no one can find it, it’s essentially a very expensive hobby.

Focus on:

• Clear, keyword-driven titles

• Descriptions that actually explain the content

• Relevant tags (not random guesses)

You don’t need to “hack the algorithm.” You need to be understandable.

TikTok vs YouTube: Stop Choosing, Start Integrating

This isn’t a competition.

TikTok and YouTube do different jobs:

• TikTok = discovery and connection

• YouTube = depth and authority

Use TikTok to:

• Test ideas

• Build visibility

• Start conversations

Use YouTube to:

• Expand on those ideas

• Build trust over time

• Create long-term assets

Together, they form a system.

Separately, they’re just noise.

The Bigger Picture: Content That Actually Reflects You

Here’s the part most people avoid.

Platforms don’t fix bad messaging.

You can:

• Post consistently

• Follow every “strategy”

• Optimise everything

…but if you don’t know what you stand for or how to communicate it, none of it sticks.

Content is an extension of identity.

And if that identity is unclear, your content will be too.

Final Thought (The One People Ignore)

You don’t need more content.

You need better alignment between:

• Who you are

• What you say

• How you show up

TikTok and YouTube aren’t magic solutions.

They’re tools.

Useful ones, powerful ones — but still just tools.

Used well, they can build visibility, trust, and opportunity.

Used badly, they’ll just give you more content to feel overwhelmed by.

Choose wisely.

Why Creating Content for Yourself Feels So Difficult (And What Most Creatives Get Wrong)

Creating content for clients is structured, strategic, and outcome-driven.

There’s always a clear objective:

Generate leads. Build authority. Increase conversions.

You’re solving a defined problem, within defined boundaries.

But when you create content for yourself, those boundaries disappear.

And suddenly, what should feel natural becomes strangely difficult.

Not because you lack ideas, but because you’ve been trained to think like a strategist, not a human. The “Client Brain” problem shows up when experienced creatives habitually filter every thought through questions of audience fit, positioning and commercial viability — a method that serves businesses brilliantly but suffocates personal content. Suddenly you’re constructing messages instead of sharing ideas, managing perception instead of voicing opinions; the result is polished yet impersonal, clear but forgettable, strategic yet disconnected. In trying so hard to appear credible, you lose what actually makes you recognisable.

Social Media Was Never Designed for Pitch Decks

There’s a fundamental misunderstanding in how many professionals approach personal content.

Social platforms reward:

- Relatability

- Consistency of voice

- Perspective

Not perfection.

Yet many creators treat their profiles like miniature corporate websites.

Every post becomes a performance.

Every sentence feels engineered.

But audiences don’t connect with positioning statements.

They connect with people.

This is why overly polished content often underperforms, while raw, perspective-driven posts gain traction.

It’s not about lowering standards.

It’s about shifting intention.

The Psychology of Over-Filtering

Research in behavioural psychology suggests that over-monitoring self-expression reduces authenticity and increases cognitive load.

In simple terms:

The more you try to control how you’re perceived, the less natural you become.

This is known as self-presentation theory (Goffman, 1959), where individuals manage impressions in social interactions.

On platforms like LinkedIn, this often leads to:

- Over-edited opinions

- Generic insights

- Risk-averse content

While this protects professional image, it also limits differentiation.

And in a saturated content environment, sameness is invisible.

Personal Brand vs Professional Persona

A critical distinction many overlook:

A professional persona is how you want to be seen.

A personal brand is how you are consistently experienced.

The difference lies in:

- Tone

- Perspective

- Consistency of thought

Building a personal brand requires:

- Sharing unfinished thinking

- Expressing nuance

- Allowing space for evolution

This feels uncomfortable, particularly for those used to delivering “finished” work.

But it’s also what creates depth and trust.

Why Trust Doesn’t Come From Perfect Content

Trust is not built through flawless execution.

It’s built through:

- Consistency over time

- Clarity of thinking

- Authentic perspective

Research in digital trust (Edelman Trust Barometer) consistently shows that audiences value:

- Transparency

- Relatability

- Expertise demonstrated through insight, not claims

This is why content that feels overly “produced” can create distance.

It signals control, not connection.

The Real Goal: Recognition, Not Perfection

The purpose of personal content is often misunderstood.

It’s not to impress.

It’s to be recognised.

Recognition comes from:

- A distinct voice

- Repeated ideas and themes

- A clear way of interpreting the world

This is what allows audiences to say:

“I know what this person stands for.”

And more importantly:

“I trust how they think.”

A More Effective Approach

Instead of asking:

“Will this get me clients?”

A better question is:

“Does this sound like me?”

Practical shifts:

- Share perspectives, not just conclusions

- Prioritise clarity over polish

- Repeat core ideas without overthinking originality

- Allow content to reflect thinking in progress

This does not mean abandoning strategy.

It means integrating it with personality.

Final Thought

Creating content for yourself feels difficult because it requires a different skill set.

Not just execution.

But self-expression.

The creatives who succeed are not the ones who sound the most professional.

They are the ones who are the most recognisable.

And in a landscape full of noise, that is what cuts through.

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Looking for a Studio in Chester? Here’s What to Know Before You Book

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If you’re searching for a studio in Chester, chances are you already have something in mind.

Maybe you need:

- a photography studio

- a space to film content

- somewhere to record a podcast

- or even just a clean, quiet space to meet and create

But here’s the problem.

Not all studios are set up the same, and choosing the wrong one can make your shoot, recording or session far harder than it needs to be.

So before you book anything, here’s what actually matters.

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1. What are you actually using the space for?

This sounds obvious, but most people skip it.

A photography studio isn’t always ideal for:

- video content

- podcasts

- or meetings

And a podcast studio might not give you the flexibility you need for visual content.

Before you book a studio in Chester, be clear on:

- what you’re creating

- how you’ll use the space

- and what setup you actually need

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2. Is the space flexible enough?

The best studio spaces aren’t just “one setup.”

They allow you to:

- move things around

- change lighting

- adapt the space to your content

Whether you’re shooting brand content, filming for social media, or recording a podcast, flexibility saves time and frustration.

3. Do you need support, or just the space?

Some people want:

> a room and they’ll handle the rest

Others need:

> guidance, setup help, or content support

There’s no right answer, but knowing this upfront helps you choose the right kind of studio hire.

If you’re creating content regularly, having someone who understands:

- filming

- structure

- and how content actually performs

…can make a big difference

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4. Location matters more than you think

When searching for a studio for hire in Chester, think beyond just the postcode.

Ask yourself:

- Is it easy to get to?

- Is there parking nearby?

- Will your team or clients find it easily?

A good location removes friction before you’ve even started.

5. What kind of environment do you need?

Some studios feel:

- clinical

- empty

- or overly complicated

Others are designed to feel:

- calm

- creative

- and easy to work in

The environment you choose directly affects:

- how you show up

- how comfortable you feel

- and ultimately, the quality of what you create

So… what should you look for?

If you’re searching for:

- a photography studio for hire in Chester

- a content creator studio

- a podcast recording space

- or a flexible meeting and creative space

Look for somewhere that combines:

- flexibility

- simplicity

- and a space that actually works with you, not against you

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A space that works with you

If you’re looking for a studio in Chester that can be used for:

• photography

• content creation

• podcast recording

• or small team sessions

I offer a flexible studio space designed for exactly that.

It’s built to be simple, adaptable, and easy to use, whether you’re creating content regularly or just need a space for a specific project.

Ready to create something?

If you’ve been searching for a studio for hire in Chester, you already know how frustrating it can be to find the right space.

If you want something straightforward, flexible, and actually usable, get in touch.

Tell me what you’re working on, and I’ll help you figure out the best setup.