We’re proud to be supporting David and Luke Edmonson at WPPI this year. They’re talking about perhaps the most important challenge facing every professional photographer – how to transform their passion for photography into a successful longterm career. Luke and David want to be known for producing great photography, and serving their clients — but of course every sustainable business needs to generate profits as well. We’re going to publish an article about their sales strategies shortly, along with some of their work, but first we thought you’d like To View More >>

Written by: Cate Scaglione - Life As Fine Art “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”― Aristotle In addition to my portrait photography business I’m a brand consultant to businesses, big and small, all over the world. One could say I grew up in the luxury business. I’ve attributed most of my business practices to a keen understanding of how luxury brands work – and how their loyal followers feel about them. Large or small, from corporate enterprises to sole proprietorships, almost every business struggles with building a solid brand. What might 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 >>

It was a very successful evening on Friday for our design agency ALT Group at the New Zealand Design Institute's Best Awards, where they won a total of eighteen awards, three of them, including a Gold, for the rebranding work they did with us last year: The GOLD AWARD was for the overall rebranding and visual identity project, as expressed in our new website, marketing material, logo, product photography etc. SILVER AWARD: For the Queensberry bride book, a promotional booklet designed specifically for our clients to distribute to brides and grooms, to express the Queensberry brand story and highlight To View More >>

A little over 6 years ago I returned to my office after a meeting with staff to introduce a design audit and branding project. My phone rang and a man introduced himself and said he was from Apple. At first I thought I was being punked - all through the presentation the consultants had compared us to, and suggested we benchmark ourselves against, not our competitors, but great companies like Apple. This gentleman proceeded to tell me he was from Cupertino and that his boss was Steve Jobs. I tried to act as if I took calls like this everyday. He said they wanted to develop a premium book, and would To View More >>

Since our re-branding last year the front flyleaf of every Queensberry album has been embossed with the new Q-mark. Why's it there? It’s simple really: to sign our work with pride and to acknowledge the craftsmanship and detailing that goes into every album we build. We're doing the same thing that you do as a photographer when you sign your work. We're branding it. Let me explain in detail what we're doing and why, because our goal is to build a brand that will support you as our clients. § Branding is primarily about getting recognised - not a "camera" but a Leica, not a "wedding album" but To View More >>

Three things I try not to do: write about our competitors, jump to their defence, and risk offending people who could be our customers; but today I’m going to do all three. I want to write about the huge outpouring against Smugmug over their price increase – and suggest a few things you should think about before you jump ship, if you’re with them. I must admit I find these outbursts upsetting, no matter the justification. When I started to use the Net back in the 90s, it was all about support, helping each other and respect. In the world I want to live in, you respect the businesses that 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 >>

It's not all bad out there you know! There are plenty of people doing better than ever, even considering the recession. So over the next few weeks we're bringing you a series of interviews with clients who are doing just great. We'll share their advice, ideas and opinions as they give us some insights into how they're successfully running their businesses. Here's the first. He's been recognised as one of the world's best photographers, serviced clients like the New York Times and Apple Computer, photographed celebrities such as Alec Baldwin, Amanda Peet, Isabella Rosselini and Donald Trump,  regularly To View More >>

Wedding and portrait photographers are lucky.  There is an automatic point of difference built into the core of our businesses - our photography.  Other businesses selling books, bricks or ice-creams are dealing with the same commodities and therefore need to make their businesses about something other than the product, such as service, fast delivery or lifestyle branding. We start out with a product that is already differentiated - and what do many of us do? We try our hardest to look like other photographers. Why? If we use the same actions, poses and website colours as our competitors, what To View More >>