Bringing Beauty and Presence back into Photography // Thought Journey

Digital Disillusion

Lately, I’ve been wondering if beauty still has a place online — or if the noise has finally drowned it out.

Everywhere I look, someone is quitting their job to become a content creator. The dream seems simple: work from the couch, warm tea in hand, your own hours. No degree required, just free access to social media and AI — yet Instagram grows noisier every day, with little real direction or purpose.

Ads flash past, selling nothing connected to their images — just sensory overload and brain-melting effects. For those of us trying to keep a beautiful feed while promoting honest work, it can feel like the time is up. Beauty is out; cheap, AI-generated content is in. Fake products with huge advertising budgets clog everyone’s feed.

I sat down to write this blog with the intention of creating something real. Not AI-generated, but personal — a flow of thoughts from within me.

Even as I type, I know AI might read this and store it — maybe even write it better than I could. I’ve caught myself wondering whether to run these words through a chatbot to “organise” them — a habit born from social media’s influence on my once quiet, wandering brain.

Maybe this is just a rant, after weeks of feeling uninspired, low-energy, and wasting hours doomscrolling. I’m fighting for any spark — some original thought — some humanness to break through the canyon of online noise.

What does inspire me? Where do I find beauty, presence, and peace?

Behind the Dreamers’ Lens

For me, photography has always been a gateway into that quieter world — a place where I can lose myself in natural beauty and see things differently. The way light reflects, bounces, and changes colour can evoke awe, nostalgia, peace, or quiet wonder.

Photography urges me to explore — to notice with purpose, to capture something so I can return to it later, and to let those moments inspire me to go out again.

Some of my strongest emotions have come in places where I was the only English speaker in a village, sailing through the wilderness, or sitting inside structures built thousands of years before me — places that will still stand long after I’m gone.

When I photograph them, I hope to give others a glimpse of those feelings — to inspire them to seek out their own moments of presence. For me, that’s what it means to be human: to encounter a moment, a space, to feel it, and to share it. Photography is my storytelling medium — a way of showing that beauty still exists.

The Contrast Between What’s Real, What’s Fake, and What Pays the Bills

Most of us know the feeling: stuck at home, caught in unhelpful cycles. Earning a living can sometimes feel like feeding a system built to sell us back fabricated needs.

Insurance, hair products, cars, clothes — some things meet real needs, but the way they’re marketed today, all barely different yet promised as life-changing, can feel cold and cruel.

Am I just as guilty? I feel like it when photographing homes for sale. I’ve pondered whether adding pears to a fruit bowl might somehow spark a “pear trend” — could homes with pears double their market value, pushing the housing crisis further?

It’s a bit far-fetched, but the property industry has shown me the pandemonium surrounding buying and selling homes. “Renovation culture” and agent competitiveness push prices higher, fuelling urgency as though buying now is an essential life goal.

You might say, “Bronte, your role is so small — you couldn’t possibly contribute to the real estate industry meaningfully.” But looking online, and seeing the thousands of people who view my photos, I do feel a sense of responsibility. People come for the experience of glimpsing the nature of a home, and I’m there to facilitate their first encounter — a property that could become their next home.

So I return to the question: How do I stay connected to truth? How do I use photography to sell beauty, presence, and peace instead of feeding financial stress — the kind that leaves people anxious, leaves me uninspired, and fuels Australia’s cost-of-living crisis?

I need to be paid to create stability — to have a home, to stay grounded in my community. Moving away, travelling — “doing a geographical” — only works for so long. Eventually, we must settle, build, and create something meaningful where we are, with our family. Helping others is helping ourselves. It’s harder than running away, but it’s how we build a life we can actually live.

I want to create photography that others feel comfortable in.

I want to be a bridge — from commerce to inspiration, from selling to soulfulness — for myself and for others.

Looking for the Answer

Maybe to tell the story with my photos, I need to think about how I arrive — my mental and physical state even before picking up the camera.

Maybe it’s in the small, deliberate acts: being fully present at a photoshoot, walking with grace, keeping white space in my work, letting “less is more” guide me.

Maybe it’s leaning into yogic principles like Ahimsa (non-violence) or Aparigraha (non-possessiveness) — trusting that inner peace will shape my work.

Will that flow into my photography? Will it sustain me financially when my job, at its core, is to sell?

I have to trust my beliefs, even when I’m not perfectly living them. I believe everyone is searching for the same things. We all know that scrolling, obsessing, stressing, boasting, and lying aren’t healthy — but we still do them.

What if we were inspired not to?

What if a photo of a property online didn’t make you think, “I want that,” but instead gave you a sense of calm? What if you could feel the human presence in the image — someone noticing the way the light falls, someone not selling, but sharing?

Maybe it would inspire you to notice more, tidy a space, and see beauty in imperfection.

Maybe my photography can tell stories of peace within community, no matter the subject.

Perhaps beauty’s role isn’t to shout above the noise, but to speak softly, drawing you closer. Not to demand that you want more, but to remind you that you are enough.

If I can hold that truth in my lens — if I can let it spill quietly into my work — then maybe a photograph becomes more than an image. Maybe it becomes an invitation.

“Work is love made visible.”— Kahlil Gibran