Why 2026 is going to be a bad year for imaging in Australia

Let’s not sugarcoat it. The creative scene in Australia is circling the drain.

Photographers, producers, stylists, assistants, models, retouchers, DPs, everyone is doing more for less, while being told to make it look effortless and aspirational. Meanwhile the cost of living is cooked. Rent is up. Petrol is up. Groceries are up. Everyone’s broke. And somehow we’re meant to keep making “premium” work on the smell of an oily rag.

It’s not sustainable. And it’s about to get worse.

1. We are way too expensive for what we deliver

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. A lot of Australian shoots cost a fortune and still look like the last seven campaigns.

You end up with photographers charging tens of thousands to produce work that feels safe and familiar. The same ten girls who have just finished making it overseas, or have been flown in for six weeks to take as much work as they can, because there agencies don’t know the first thing about developing a portfolio. Stylists trying to make fast fashion look editorial with too many clips. Producers charging agency-sized fees to book the same type of location you saw last month.

I’m looking at you Pink Walled Vaucluse mansion. Someone beg Justin Hemmes to at least use Hermitage for a shoot or two, just to have a few Heritage features.

Location fees that feel higher than an overseas plane ticket. And a six-person crew to light, shoot, hold bounce, assist, capture, edit, and deliver in 48 hours because everyone’s terrified of being replaced.

Oh, and when it comes to our most iconic landmarks, forget showing them to Australian’s they’re not aspirational enough, they’re tacky, lame and overdone, even if we’ve never seen them in a campaign.

Add it up and the brand is $50K deep before you’ve even opened a moodboard. For what?

Something forgettable. Because forgettable has become the standard.

Then brands look around and do the math. They can fly to Bali, shoot five looks in natural light with a world-class team, and still spend less. They can go to Spain and get more soul in three hours than they can wring from a week here. They can shoot in Hawaii and get real sunshine and real diversity without a fight.

And that leads to the next problem…

2. We don’t have the talent anymore because the good ones leave

Australia doesn’t have a talent problem because people aren’t capable. We have a talent problem because we burn people out, underpay them, and then act surprised when they leave.

The truly talented photographers, stylists, models, DPs, and producers go overseas because Australia doesn’t develop anyone properly. We don’t invest in young creatives. We don’t mentor at scale. We don’t build a pipeline. We gatekeep, hoard connections, and gossip behind each other’s backs while pretending there’s room for everyone.

And the bigger layer underneath that is funding. Or the lack of it.

There are no meaningful creative incubators. No accessible grants that actually match the cost of producing work. No consistent support. The arts sector has been gutted repeatedly by governments that treat creativity like a nuisance instead of something nation-building.

Over the last decade, the message has been loud and clear. Be grateful you get to do what you love. Now do it for free, do it fast, and do it without infrastructure.

So of course people leave. Why wouldn’t they?

What we’re left with is a small, overworked pond of people fighting each other just to stay visible.

3. We’ve built a monoculture

Every brand here is selling the same dream. Country Road sets the tone, then Witchery echoes it. Trenery echoes them. Everyone else borrows from all three.

Light linens. Muted palettes. Soft smiles. Expensive houses. Native plants.

Safe. Inoffensive. Interchangeable.

We have some of the most striking landscapes, diverse people, and raw creative potential in the world. But you’d never know it from what we keep producing, because we’d rather recycle a Pinterest moodboard and call it innovation.

Instagram has made it worse. Everyone copies the same handful of photographers. Same angles. Same presets. Same “moody” light. It’s wallpaper. A never-ending scroll of derivative work designed to get likes from other photographers and maybe a DM from a brand that wants to “jump on a call.”

That’s not a creative scene. That’s a performance.

4. We are not collaborative

You’d think a small industry would be supportive. It should be. It has to be.

Instead, the Australian imaging industry runs on scarcity mindset. Don’t share your gear list. Don’t tag your team. Don’t mention the stylist. Don’t tell anyone how you got the job because they might take it.

We hoard knowledge. We undercut each other. We smile at the party and talk trash the next day.

I’ve been on set more times than I can count, where I’ve been told “No BTS, because the photographer is worried that someone will steal there lighting design, as an autistic lighting technician, dude, it’s all basic, a good technician can knock off your clean cut bounced light look in under an hour.

Ask a genuine question in a public group and watch what happens. Silence. Or worse, mockery. This isn’t a community. It’s a high school. The “popular kids” hold the work, and everyone else is made to feel lucky just to be nearby.

5. There is no creative culture, only commercial pressure

We have beaches, sure. But a beach does not equal a culture.

There’s no widespread appetite here for strange, experimental work. Try something different and people look at you like you’re being difficult. Every creative project is expected to turn a profit immediately. If it doesn’t go viral, doesn’t book work, doesn’t attract followers, then what was the point?

That mindset is killing the industry. Not slowly. Quickly.

We’re burning out artists, photographers, models, and crew by demanding work that is instantly monetisable, universally appealing, and algorithm-friendly.

That’s not creativity. That’s content.

And it’s why we’re in trouble.

What this actually means

It means fewer jobs. Fewer risks. More brands going overseas. More talent moving away. More mid-tier creatives priced out and forced to quit. More young models developed by TikTok and brands instead of agencies, mentorship, or actual care.

It also means more people saying yes to dodgy photographers, manipulative “opportunities,” and unsafe sets because they feel like they have no choice. When the system squeezes hard enough, standards drop. Boundaries collapse. People get hurt.

This is an industry in decline, not because people aren’t trying, but because the system they’re trying inside is broken. And we’re too polite, too afraid, or too exhausted to say it out loud.

So I’ll say it.

The Australian imaging industry is broken. Unless we start fixing it from the inside out with funding, mentorship, risk-taking, community, better wages, and real support, we’ll keep losing the very thing we claim to care about.

We need to rebuild.

We need to work together, collaborate, encourage and get busy lifting each other up.

Or there won’t be anything left.

I bit my tongue, long enough, surely this could get me blacklisted, but that’s why I have my magazine you can purchase here.