July 30th 2025:
We’ve made the difficult decision to bring The Male Studio to a close.
This has not been an easy choice, but it is one that feels right. What began as a space for queer men to feel seen, celebrated and safe has slowly shifted into something that no longer feels joyful or sustainable for us as the owners. The time, energy and care it takes to run this business well is immense, and we are simply burnt out and realise it’s time to end things here.
There isn’t one specific reason why, more a build up of numerous things over time which have made continuing harder and harder. We wanted to provide some explanation below, to those who may be interested, giving just some of the main reasons why we’ve reached this decision. It hasn’t been made in haste, we’ve considered this for a long time and reached this conclusion a while ago.
One of the biggest challenges we continue to face is social media. Platforms like Instagram, which offer the largest audience, consistently restrict our reach. As many queer creators will know, the impact of censorship often hits our community hardest. We have adapted and reworked our content again and again, until it no longer feels like ours, but something made to appease the powers that be. Our Instagram account became more and more censored, with more posts removed. It got to a point that opening the app meant more content of ours was gone, never to be seen, due to Instagram’s idea of what is and isn’t appropriate. Further to this, the way Meta continues to operate and be complicit in terrible actions around the globe cannot be ignored. We stayed on Instagram far longer than we felt comfortable, to try and reach an audience, an audience that Instagram continually severely limited our reach to.
Bluesky gave us a more open platform, but growth there is incredibly slow. After over a year of almost daily content being posted there, our reach continues to be miniscule. If we can’t find our audience, how are we able to continue, let alone grow.
With social media, it has left us pouring hours into content, planning, messages and shoots, just to be buried by algorithms or hidden behind censorship and just recently, age verification. It’s all got too much, an unwinnable uphill battle.
We have also struggled with visibility in other ways. Our hope was to collaborate with other queer owned or led businesses, but our efforts rarely gained traction. Magazines, online content, clothing brands, underwear brands, adult shops, content creators, lifestyle brands, travel brands, pride events, community events and more. If you’ve thought of it, we’ve probably made an effort to try and collaborate in some way. If you are not already established, you tend to be ignored, and if you are ignored, it is almost impossible to get established. It is a frustrating cycle. However long you imagine we have spent working on potential collaborations, just trust that it was likely ten times more than you image. This alone felt like a full time job, just to try and gain exposure to a wider audience.
We have been lucky to work with some wonderful clients, both privately and through promotional shoots. But most paying clients ask for privacy, which we always respect as a cornerstone of our principles, but that limits how much of our beautiful work we can share. Promotional shoots, while often lovely, are mostly unpaid. We have faced frequent no shows, last minute cancellations and months of planning wasted. We have hired paid professional models through reputable sites, only to be ghosted, and then banned from those same sites, simply for doing work that was wrongly assumed to be adult content.
We do not want to keep fighting platforms and policies that treat our work as something shameful. There’s nothing shameful about it. There is a huge double standard when it comes to what is acceptable with male presenting bodies, especially queer ones.
Then there are the enquiries that are not really enquiries at all. People who are not looking for a shoot, but instead want to act out a fantasy under the guise of booking one. We have always tried to treat every message professionally, but we have been misled too often. These encounters go nowhere, yet still take time and energy we never get back. This was possibly the worst part – because it was deceptive, and time consuming, often taking a long time for their real intentions to be shown.
We have also had our personal boundaries pushed. The Male Studio was never intended to be a sexual space, it was always creative one. Born out of the idea that queer men should also be able to experience the feeling of empowerment from beautiful, artistic portraits that celebrate them completely. This is art to us, and it has always been work. But again and again, we were treated as if we existed to fulfil someone else’s fantasy. The fantasy of the “handsy photographer”. It was dehumanising. How we felt, as the creators of the work, was disregarded time and again because someone had a role they wanted played out. We never caved on this, we have always been nothing but professional, but this quickly became tiresome and at times hurtful.
We created The Male Studio because we saw too many photographers in this space crossing lines, with questionable practises and blurry lines of consent. We wanted to do it differently. With respect to us and the subject. But often, even when our intentions were clear, they were still misread. What we offered was safety and affirmation, not a blank canvas for anyone to do what they like and behave however they felt. That distinction was too often ignored. Why can’t we, as queer folk, have something that’s just creative and beautiful? Why must it be turned into something more? It’s a shame, it’s not a judgement, but it is a realisation that ‘the thing’ we wanted this endeavour to be simply wasn’t achieved and missed the mark, even after many years of consistent messaging.
To be absolutely clear: every model you have seen on our site or social channels has been respectful, professional and a joy to work with. The problems we have faced have almost entirely come from paying clients (not all of them), and that brings its own difficult dynamic – when money is involved this really shifted the dynamic. There have also been promotional photoshoots with models that nobody has ever seen, as they have been scrapped after the fact for a variety of reasons.
Running a small creative business today means wearing many hats. We are not just photographers. On any one day we are also editors, retouchers, schedulers, customer service, web designers, social media creators, copy writers, accountants, personal assistants, creative consultants and so much more. Every shoot, every email, every concept, every edit, it all came from us. Two people. That takes time, energy and passion. And when that passion starts to fade, due to the weight of doing it all, it begins to take its toll.
The Male Studio was always meant to be something creative, joyful and empowering. In short, fun. For a while, it really was. But slowly, it became something that wore us down. What once lit us up began to feel heavy. That is when we knew it was time to let go of it and say goodbye.
We are not stepping away from photography completely, just The Male Studio. Our work with photography continues, as does our building a photography studio space thats welcoming and accepting to everyone. Those of you who know us well know that our work continues elsewhere. If you would like to keep up with our future work, message us and we will be happy to share details. Our website and social media accounts related to The Male Studio may stay up a little while longer, but we will not be posting more content and no new enquiries will be handled.
This is not a bitter ending. Just an honest one.
Sometimes, beautiful things have to end, and that is what makes them beautiful.
With thanks for sharing this journey and much love x
This website will stay active for a short while, as will our social media, while we wrap things up – but no further enquiries will be handled. The website, email and social media channels will be deactivated or removed at some point in the future.