I'm a bit frustrated! We have two new initiatives to launch but we can't get either out until next week, so I thought I'd try and clear up a few misconceptions about SEO... SEO comes to mind for two reasons. First, in Ian's 14 Tips post a while back he said (rather carelessly!), "10. Link to the venues, florists, dressmakers and other vendors who were connected to the event - another Workspace feature. They'll love you for it, and linking is great for SEO." Someone commented, "Yes, linking is great for SEO, but for the [site] you are linking to, not for you… I'm always wary about linking to…vendors' To View More >>

A series about storytelling in album design. Highlight the Heroes Every story needs a hero, and so does your album design - probably one on most layouts! The hero image is the focal point, the main attraction, the place you want the viewer's eye drawn to. In graphic design speak it’s called creating visual hierarchy. The supporting characters help the story along and keep things interesting, but it's the heroes you want to shine. I talked about ways to begin and wrap up a story previously, but the middle of the story is where the action is. People dress up and assemble together, the guy finally To View More >>

If there really are 3.5 trillion photos, which are the important ones? The ones that get picked, printed and presented. Presented in a magazine, a book, a frame, an album. But who does the picking? If it's social photography and the photographer's doing the choosing, which images will make the cut? The perfect shots. The ones that tell the story. The ones that fit in the book. And inevitably, the ones that make the photographer look good. Hundreds and thousands of photographs get discarded because they're imperfect or don't suit our purposes. But those "rejects" could tell a different story, and To View More >>

Reading Dad's post about treating people as individuals reminded me of sitting in Air New Zealand's LAX lounge a few years ago. I was working on my laptop when this attractive woman sat down next to me and asked if I had the wireless login. Sorry," I said, "the wifi is playing up - you'll need a cable from the front desk". She turned her computer towards me and said, "It's OK, I have a Mac". :) "So do I, but you'll still need a cable," I said. "Look, I have to go confirm my seat - I'll get one for you." She smiled and said thank you. A few minutes later I returned and helped her get her computer To View More >>

Right up there with the 3% rule as a Queensberry mantra is Good Better Best. We don't claim that either of them is original, just that they're common sense. In fact fundamental if you want to build a sustainable longterm career. Good Better Best is a strategy for up-selling – having products and services to tempt your clients across a range of price points. To be blunt, you're offering your customers what they want (something cheap!) while at the same time encouraging them to spend more. Simply put, it does so by offering people three choices… GOOD is your entry level – affordable if you To View More >>

The other day I proposed a way to encourage enquirers to look past your prices and make personal contact. It was partly a way to start identifying people who should be your clients, and withdrawing (politely) from those who probably shouldn't. You need to demonstrate to the first group why you’re the right photographer to spend their wedding day with! The 3% rule The 3% rule is our way of saying that you can't succeed by trying to appeal to everyone, and you definitely shouldn't try. It stems from the time, years ago, when we tried to estimate the number of professional photographers in the To View More >>

Have you seen the movie Hitchcock yet? Even without hobbits, elves and superheroes it's very entertaining. Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma were a family business, as many people reading this probably are, and it's interesting to watch the movie through that lens... 1. The movie focuses on the making of Psycho. No one else believed in the project, so they mortgaged their house to make it. Sound familiar? 2. They worked best when they worked together. He was the famous one but Alma was clearly important to his success. 3. They made Psycho come alive in the editing room by arguing about the little To View More >>

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 >>

The Chicago Sun-Times made the news by laying off its entire photography staff last week, leaving 28 people without a job. While we all need to move with the times, the real heart-breaking twist for the photojournalists is that they are to be replaced by reporters who will be taught how to take pictures and videos using iPhones. The story made news around the world, in part perhaps because one of the photographers who lost their jobs was veteran photojournalist - and Pulitzer winner - John H. White, who is featured in this audio: Over the years John White has photographed, among others, Nelson 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 >>