The Reflexive Lens

From the Front Row of the Visual Spectacle to the Heart of the System​
I've had a front-row seat to media transformation before. I started as a photojournalist at The Scotsman, and in the summer of 1999 the industry went digital almost overnight — no more running to the processing room to develop negatives from a job; suddenly I was sitting alone in a car, wiring images straight back to the photo desk. A few years later, in Los Angeles, I watched a similar disruption from the other side of the velvet rope: photographers like myself initially wouldn't let bloggers like Perez Hilton anywhere near a red carpet — we laughed him off as a novelty — and within a couple of years, he had the front-row seat himself.
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That path led me to Amazon as a Senior Photographer, and subsequently to directing major ecommerce campaigns for luxury Scottish heritage brands and retailers, partnering with agencies including Tayburn and Indez Ltd on productions for brands like Gretna Green and DC Dalgliesh. From there, I began running website and photography audits for SMB fashion retailers across Scotland selling global luxury brands, from Jimmy Choo to Coco Chanel — then training their teams to bring product photography in-house, applying consistent brand identity and messaging across their own imagery. The results were strong enough that I was invited to keynote at the Institute of Ecommerce, organized by Indez and hosted at the University of Strathclyde, and the businesses I worked with saw real, measurable ROI from the shift.
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That instinct for catching a transformation early followed me into research. My Masters in Digital Marketing was completed during the pandemic lockdown, while companies everywhere scrambled to work out what "digital" even meant for them overnight. Six years on, we're living through another one — and this time, I'm not just watching it happen. I'm studying it, and helping others navigate it.
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Turning the Lens Critical
Yet, despite the commercial triumphs, the Best-in-Scotland accolades, and the high-status consultancy contracts, I hit a profound artistic and ethical limit. I realized that I did not want to spend my life photographing mass-produced consumer goods on sterile white backgrounds—designing visual systems that fueled unsustainable desires for things people didn't truly need.
That realization became the definitive tipping point of my practice. I realized that to understand the deeper social and ecological impacts of visual culture, I had to move from creating media to critically analyzing it.
 
However, my academic transition was not a departure from my visual life; instead, it was a logical evolution. After earning an MSc in Digital Marketing (Distinction) and an MRes in Business Management at Strathclyde. I then received prestigious ESRC funding to pursue my PhD in the University of Strathclyde's Business School, Marketing Department. This critical pivot was validated by early visual essays and peer-reviewed academic recognition. My series Dressing Our Way to Extinction won consecutive Strathclyde Image of Research awards, and my research poster won First Place at the Doctoral Colloquium of the 11th International Research Conference in Marketing. These accolades proved that the camera could be used as a rigorous, scientifically validated tool for social-cultural and environmental critique, rather than just a commercial sales engine.
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Decoding the Maternal Myth
Today, my doctoral research focuses on the tradwife movement and the monetization of motherhood. We live in a highly digitized culture where mothers are bombarded with curated, performance-driven ideals — from the pristine, luxury "yummy mummy" to the highly stylized, nostalgic "tradwife."
 
Through my ESRC-funded project, Not Enough Hands, I invite Millennial and Gen Z mothers to step out from behind the algorithmic filter and talk about the tradwife content they follow — or scroll straight past. I run that imagery through Google's Gemini for analysis and Claude for a second, semiotic reading, then compare both against my own — a refractive method that makes bias visible in the gap between what the machines see and what I do. Then we step away from the screen to co-create honest, expressive portraits that reflect everyday lived experience.
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A Unified, Empathetic Practice
Lastly, my research and photography are therefore not separate pursuits; they are the perfect companions. Working directly with families keeps my academic theories grounded in physical reality, while my research ensures that the family portraits I capture are honest, authentic, and completely free from the sterile, commercial pressures of perfection. Whether I am documenting the extraordinary, unposed rhythms of daily life inside Glasgow's Children's Hospital for my NHS book project, standing in a lecture hall presenting my research, or co-creating portraits with mothers in their living rooms, my purpose remains unyielding: to dismantle hyper-curated myths and create a truer, more inclusive, and deeply compassionate record of what it means to be a mother today.
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That same critical lens now runs through my work helping brands understand what their AI-generated visuals are really saying — and the workshops I run teaching people to use Google's Gemini, Nano Banana, and Claude with a critical eye.
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