As a social photographer, it's so easy to get caught up working for clients and watching our bottom line that creative inspiration can become just another item on our To Do list. So how can we stay inspired, and so do our best work for clients, without getting burned out? How can we fill our 'creative well' regularly?' as Julia Cameron from The Artist's Way would ask. There is a way and it's called Instagram. As long as you can get online, inspiration can be yours in a non-stop stream of talent and buzzing creativity. When Instagram first arrived, it was known for its over-processed To View More >>

Our support team deals with photographers all day, every day. We know how people struggle with technology. And we think the software that professionals use can be part of the problem… making things worse, not better. How does this make sense? - Hosting your images with one provider, but your website somewhere else. Creating customer websites with a third provider, and mobile apps with a fourth. Designing albums with a fifth, and proofing them with a sixth. Branding your blog images with a seventh, but actually blogging somewhere else again! Each time there's another piece of software to To View More >>

Relationships with local wedding venues are a great way to build a strong wedding and portrait business, and a beautiful display album featuring the venue works well for both parties. Simon Whitten is a long-standing and valued Queensberry client from Yorkshire in England. His association with the luxury castle hotel Swinton Park is very important to him, and for years his Queensberry sample album has rested on the piano in the drawing room. When the time came to update it, the question was “with what?” These days most of his clients tend towards the 14x10 Duo that Simon prefers. But feeling To View More >>

Click the screenshots to view them full size Workspace is constantly evolving. If you haven't tried it lately you haven't tried it! This week we’re excited to announce that we’ve just upgraded Workspace slideshows for smartphones and tablets. On iOS and Android devices your image collections now display like mobile apps, which on iOS your customer can even install easily on their home screen. Scroll down for demos, and click the big gold button for an introductory offer! Here's the back story... From Day One our goal for Workspace has been to make it super-easy to host and display your To View More >>

In many labs these days the only people who look at your prints are the Dispatch team. Strange as it seems, that makes sense – it's your files they’re printing, and something has to give if you want low prices. But it doesn’t make sense at Queensberry. We critique everything we print, including Print-Ready. The difference is we see the image files with Full Colour Service (because it’s our job to colour correct them) whereas we don’t see Print-Ready work until it’s printed . But why review Print-Ready work at all? Print-Ready means you edit your images yourself, and we don’t modify To View More >>

You’ve heard the saying about fitting square pegs in round holes? It can be very apt when it comes to choosing images for our Photo Front covers, especially the 1/4 Photo Front, as this screen shot from PJ Remix indicates – only a slice from the image will fit on the cover. Although I’ve used Photojunction to illustrate the problem, it solves the problem as well. In Photojunction simply drag the image you want to use on to the cover layout, as in the screen shot. If it won’t fit the space you’ll soon know: you'll need to choose a different cover style or find an image with a suitable To View More >>

We were checking the Photojunction resources for our new season release, and thought - again – wow, we really like these. The sumptuous new micro leathers, the lovely feel of the new suedes, the gorgeous silks. (Click on the image to enlarge). If you're a regular client you'll get to touch and feel them in your new swatch book, which arrives soon. Meantime, you can check them out here. To View More >>

We like to say “We’re local” wherever we do business, but this story is as local as you can get… When we asked our regular clients to complete a survey, we promised a free album to one lucky respondent. We couldn’t believe it when the winner was a New Zealander, Liz March, from our own hometown! In fact she used to work not a mile from the Bindery. When we asked Liz to introduce herself to our readers, this is what she wrote: “About ten years ago I was working as an art teacher at a full immersion Maori school in Glen Eden. On my way to school one morning I picked up a hitchhiker who To View More >>

                  How do you know what size and shape to make an album cover image? How do you account for the aspect ratio and cover wrap-around (the part of the image you can't see)? If it sounds hard, it's not. Just design the cover in PJ Remix. It's exactly like designing pages only easier. You can see the aspect ratio and the wrap-around. And problems rarely occur because it's so obvious when images don't fit. We've already blogged about album covers, especially here and here, so we won't repeat ourselves. If you're not sure how to send us the image there's a link about that too. To View More >>

My interview with Rod Ellmore talked about how the close partnership between photographers and vendors in the '70s and '80s helped build some great careers, but it wasn't all positive. One disadvantage was that marketing gimmicks picked up at seminars organised by the vendors propagated like viruses! Like this one - the notorious "couple in the brandy glass". Pam brought us a picture (left) from her brother Martin's 80s wedding to Simone (thanks for sharing!). And I found proof that tacky ideas live on in Photoshop. Now you know I'm a snob – but not as much as I used to be: There's nothing wrong To View More >>