Are you proud of your work? What's it worth? Where do you sit in the marketplace? Cheap and cheerful? In the pack? At the top? If you're not happy with where you are, what are you doing each day to change that? I believe it's very hard to achieve our goals if we don't have our heads and hearts straight, and at Queensberry we have fierce internal debates about two questions that directly affect what we do each day. The first is about our relationship with you, the photographer. You're our customer, right? Our job is to package your images, enhance their perceived value and create new sales opportunities To View More >>

Since launching the new Queensberry Print website, we’ve had quite a few compliments on the illustrations in the homepage slideshow. So we thought we’d share a bit about Toril Bækmark, the illustrator we worked with to create these beautiful images. Craft, artisanship and attention to detail are close to our hearts, and we believe our lab team are true artisans in an industry where those qualities are fast disappearing. We wanted to express this on the new site, and finding an illustrator aligned with those values was very important. Toril's portfolio shows her high level of sophistication To View More >>

Looking through the design workshop yesterday I discovered a book I made nearly twenty years ago. It reminded me how grateful I am to one of my mentors, the bookbinder Michael O’Brien, a man of enormous talent, insight and good humour, and without a doubt the most eccentric person I’ve ever met. I met Michael in 1994, just before he moved his workshop from Auckland to the South Island. One of the books he was working on was for a European art collector, to mount his Picasso drawings. This was a revelatory experience for me. Do people like this exist? Do they pay thousands of dollars for books? To View More >>

Many photographers include albums in their wedding packages but you'd never know it! On their websites they'll say they sell them - they may even say how much they cost - but they won't actually show what they look like. We strongly believe that to be successful you need to show people what you want them to buy. Sarah Vivienne from the UK is someone who does a great job of it. These photos are from her blog: On her blog Sarah photographs and discusses her albums with detailed product shots and insight into the design process. I recently spoke with her and this is what she had to say: "I find To View More >>

Supported by Canon, GM Photographics are bringing their successful wedding and portrait business seminar tour to New Zealand. Graham Munro and Lauren Bootland have already enjoyed a sell out tour across Australia and are now bringing their wisdom and experience to the land of the long white cloud. There are two different types of seminar available in each city: THE MASTERCLASS: Together, Graham and Lauren will host a full day seminar full of the fundamentals of what makes a business successful in these current economic times. Tips and motivation that are actually working in many businesses right To View More >>

In business there's one thing we need to focus on constantly – our customers and their experience. It's not what I think (the business owner) but what you think (the customer). At the cafe where I got this cup of tea, the marshmallow on the saucer suggests that somebody was trying to give me a little something extra, and a good experience. But my primary desire is to have a great cup of tea. Glance around your average cafe and there's a very expensive machine to make awesome coffee. Organic, fair trade, freshly roasted beans. A barrista who's been taught how to add delight to the coffee experience. To View More >>

I don't know how you'll feel about this, but a few days ago I unsubscribed from a customer's Facebook page. I just got sick of the bad taste in my mouth from a stream of quite unpleasant political comments and links in my newsfeed. I personally don't think anyone in business should mix business and politics. Or religion for that matter. Not just because it's unwise to turn off people who might be your customers, but because it's wrong to judge people by their ideology or faith, or the lack of either. I don't care whether they're of the left or the right, in my experience if you can get past people's To View More >>

Simon and Sophie were married in Taormina, Sicily after choosing a destination wedding for them and their friends and family. They were photographed by Phil Drinkwater from Manchester. Their wedding day preparation began in their traditional Sicilian Villa and the ceremony took place at the end of the main street in an old building via an interpreter. A key moment was walking through the street towards the bar for canapés with the Sicilians passing by wishing them congratulations - a truly unique experience. They spent the rest of the day chatting with friends while taking in the stunning views To View More >>

The average wedding photographer works a lot harder today than they did ten to thirty years ago. The promise that digital photography would make life easier and cheaper just hasn’t eventuated. We've been keeping statistics about our albums for thirty years, and I thought sharing a few numbers might reinforce that cliche, “We’re our own worst enemies”. We’re talking averages here, and everybody's different, but this is how it looks to us. Old World Wedding Photography • Medium format camera, 120 roll film, 10 rolls x 12 exp. = 120 shots. • Typical album: 12 To View More >>

Every now and then I see an "About" page that I particularly like, such as Amanda's at Orchard Cove Photography. It features this photograph, which she says "captures me and my brother running up the hill at my Grandma’s house when I was two years old. When my Grandma passed away, I found the photo framed in her bathroom. It now hangs in my bedroom." Amanda says that one image calls back countless memories of her grandmother, "playing with her dogs, exploring her movie collection, leafing through her scrapbooks, eating her famous tuna salad, feeding the birds, jumping on her bed, and trying To View More >>