Simon Woolf is one of the most energetic and engaging people I know. When I interviewed him he was in Auckland as official photographer at our previous Prime Minister Helen Clark's investiture to the Order of New Zealand. He got a hug from Helen because they know each other that well and he's that nice a guy. A couple of nights earlier I'd spotted him on TV in the media scrum at Willie Apiata's Victoria Cross ceremony. Again he was the official photographer. And to complete the picture of a guy who's everywhere, one of his landscape images, of an unusual sunrise, had featured the day before in To View More >>

After Catherine and Michael became engaged at the Islington Hotel in Hobart it was the obvious choice when they chose to elope. When they returned for the wedding the focus was on a relaxed day with fantastic food, wine and the company of their closest friends and family. They were photographed by Jonathan Wherrett. Take a look at a few layouts from this Duo 14x10H album. To see more work by Jonathan Wherrett, click here. Enjoy! Anna To View More >>

[caption id="attachment_7050" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Musée 10x7 dark tan; photography and page layout design by Johannes van Kan"][/caption] If you read my Musée story recently, you’ll recall it ended with a cliff-hanger … but it turned out well. You may remember we’d made an album featuring Christian [Oth's] images, but he'd never seen it. We were nervous. Well we finally did catch up, and he loved it. Then Johannes [van Kan’s] album of Virginia and Richard’s wedding won at WPPI. You can view his complete album on Youtube (no audio) or Vimeo (recommended: this is the To View More >>

In 2000, when we started doing business in North America, our representative lived in Edmonton, Canada, and our very first clients lived in Houston, Texas, and Sacramento, California. No way could Darlene drop by! It’s a good illustration of our most interesting challenge as an international supplier: getting our products into new clients’ hands for them to touch and feel, no matter where they live. Getting started is an act of faith on your part, and an act of commitment on ours. “You take the first step and we’ll go the extra mile.” It gets even more interesting when the product is To View More >>

Our first Northern Hemisphere show was in Birmingham UK in 2001, when we shared a booth at FOCUS with the Guild of Photographers. We did so well we decided to fly solo at WPPI the following year. Our first time in Vegas! At that first show I turned up late on Day One because of a minor drama back home. It was amazing. Our little team (with an Aussie customer in support) were red-faced and practically shouting to make themselves heard to photographers piled up like driftwood round our booth. We had a blast for three days, heading back to the Casino in the evenings for a quiet drink in the din of To View More >>

Good design is a big part of the Queensberry way, so may we introduce Anna Matsuoka, one of our product designers. Anna M grew up in the beautiful historic city of Kamakura in Tokyo, which maybe explains her very strong focus on materials and the preservation of history. She studied curatorial and fine arts at the Tama Art University in Japan. Issey Miyake studied at the same university, which has a strong emphasis on the art of choosing and working with materials. While at TAU Anna also did an Internship at the Tokyo National Museum where she studied how to present artifacts. After moving to New To View More >>

My two children are getting married, and In Part 1 I talked about how my eyes have been opened by the experience. What would my kids get if they hired a "professional photographer” for $3500.00 or so? Generally the photographer's time on the day, a DVD, no post work, often from someone who doesn't know how to give a "wedding day experience" on top of everything else. $3500 feels like too much money for that, but as I pointed out, the wholesale costs involved are too high to expect much more. Prices like that encourage couples to go shopping with unrealistically low budgets for photography … To View More >>

A huge crowd turned up last week to the first of our two-part webinar series focused on the most critical issue facing professional photographers: how to survive and thrive in today's demanding market. But plenty more people missed it and asked us to post a recording online. So here's part one: How to sell albums (and why) Or click here to watch it full screen on our vimeo channel. Ian (Director and co-founder), Stephen Baugh (Managing Director) and Jo Newman (UK Account Manager) answer some important questions... What can my competitors teach me? How should I choose my sample albums? To View More >>

Four years in, and Suzanne Black could teach a lot of people a lot of things…especially about marketing and surviving when times get tough. I had a chat with her about what she thinks are the keys to success, how she turns 90% of her enquiries into bookings and why albums are so important to her business. Positivity is contagious. Suzanne is feeling positive right now. I haven't heard that response to a question about the state of the economy in a long time, but after chatting I've decided describing her as "positive" is an understatement... She says, “In the current climate I think it's more To View More >>

I just made a couple of new friends, Jeff and Erin Youngren from San Diego… And it took all of a couple of minutes. Stephen and Danny first met these guys at WPPI in Vegas, and we’ve been in touch ever since. You may remember our post about their new website and promo video so I asked them to share some of their experiences around online marketing, business and their album strategy.  But it was their philosophy, not only to business, but to life, that dominated the conversation. Let’s be friends Jeff and Erin had just returned from a holiday to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, with To View More >>