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 >>

Interesting question from Sergey on my Opportunities post. What do you do if people want this cool album that they've never seen before – but they want to postpone the purchase, maybe until their first anniversary. Here's what we think. As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I'd look for a way to sweeten the deal and get a commitment now. OK, we hate the D word, but maybe a discount would do the trick. Or arrange monthly payments via credit card, preferably with a deposit to cover your costs. Anyway, try hard for a commitment now, and get the album out there working for you. To View More >>

That recent New York Times article caused a kerfuffle by highlighting the impact of digital imaging, photo sharing, stock photography etc. In a nutshell, how does a professional photographer survive and thrive when imagery is everywhere, and generally free or nearly so? Or as Seth Godin put it, how are "average photographers" going to make a living shooting weddings "when the guests can do almost as well and all the photos are going on flickr anyway"? Case in point... Our own Danny married Natalie recently. Needless to say they hired a photographer ... but if they hadn't? They have heaps of photos To View More >>

In the context of professional people photography here are a few things that surprise and puzzle us. How often the images are released from the studio before the sale is finalised. How the album planning/sales process can take months, sometimes years. How there's often no attempt to up-sell after the event. How the album is treated as a cost, not a marketing tool. How album planning is treated as an obligation not an opportunity. How studios go with the crowd, instead of standing out from it. None of those maximise your opportunities, and there are probably less of those to go round right now. To View More >>

That's a question we've been asked a few times, and the answer is different for Press Books and Press Albums. Books are inherently more affordable than albums – although as the saying goes you can really pimp your ride with Queensberry’s Press Books: translucents, art papers, leather covers, Mayu cases, the works. In fact it’s surprised (and gratified) us a bit how many of you have gone for the upmarket options. On the other hand, with Press Albums the challenge was two-fold: to offer something you couldn’t get with our classic albums (art papers in particular) and to strike a dramatically To View More >>

I was sitting at my desk eating Mini Dinosaurs (from the Natural Confectionery Company). I was wondering about the scope of Photojunction as a tool in our business … the list of opportunities to make money from this (very free) software. I could increase the album sale with… More pages - fancy covers - extras like flips and wings - cases - digital copies, duplicates and parent albums - press book versions. I can show some of these (like extra pages, flips and wings) in the software. Others, like fancy covers, may need help from Queensberry's swatch book. Actually press books are a huge opportunity To View More >>

I daren't start this blog with 'In my day ... things were different!' In my day 'We' were the difference ... we were the new generation biting at the heals of 'the old guard'. There was always going to be a new generation coming in to replace what we did. Several things happened in the wedding industry when I was starting up. People started looking for images that were less formal and more photojournalistic, and people started asking for their negatives. Enter Generation 2.0, invigorated and empowered by the digital revolution. Camera makers have made it easier for our audience to be better aligned To View More >>

Nigel's post about Chris MacKenzie creating his own luck reminded me the world is full of opportunities. The problem is to recognise them and take action. I was at a seminar in the States 2-3 years ago, a roomful of high net worth business people plus me. We got to talking about Queensberry, and wedding albums in general. Not one of them had ever seen a Queensberry or anything like it. One guy had recently married at an exclusive Carribean resort … spent a gazillion bucks on the event … and "ticked the box" for a shoot-and-burn DVD from the resort's tame photographer. I had to go and get an To View More >>

It's been a while, but this year Queensberry and Photojunction are returning to PMA's Digital Life Expo in Melbourne, Australia. We love opportunities like this to meet old friends and make new ones … and we hope you’ll be among them. Queensberry is for people who believe that the way to succeed is to stand out from the crowd, not join it, and we have two new projects to talk to you about: 1. As you may know Apple chose Queensberry as one of “the world’s finest bookmakers” to introduce their album design and ordering service in Aperture 3. Far from us to say why they chose us, so come To View More >>

Stock photography may be eating into commission opportunities for professionals, but some people are doing very well out of it, including Aussie photographer David Freund. I saw David online talking about iStockphoto's 10th birthday and asked him how this fitted with his wedding business. - Ian Ian Baugh from Queensberry recently posed a question to me about the role my stock photography takes in my wedding photography business. It’s not unusual to find that most wedding photographers also photograph other things. Commonly wedding photographers are also portrait photographers, some are landscape To View More >>