We’d never been to Lyttelton until a couple of years ago. At school we’d all learnt it was Christchurch’s port, but that didn’t mean you had to visit.

Now everyone knows it’s at the epicentre of Christchurch’s earthquake.

The reason I did eventually visit Lyttelton was to catch up with Johannes van Kan and Jo Grams. It’s a fabulous little town, with a nice traditional pub (you walk down the corridor to the bathroom, just like the old days), lots of local music, good restaurants, great coffee, a beautiful setting. And in centre of the town the original, often funky, sometimes beautiful, apparently sturdy heritage buildings.

Jo and Johannes bought the old council building and courthouse and set up house, studio and baby there. It was damaged in the first quake last September, but they still had a building.

But watching TV last night, after the new quake, there was no coverage, no pictures from the town. Just word that it was near the epicentre, that the road tunnel was closed and the main street “destroyed”.

This morning I hear that Jo, Johannes and Ida are safe, but their building is “broken”.

Marg and Peter from Beverley Studios have been wonderful clients of our lab for decades. They’re in the CBD and were hit badly by the September quake, and again by a major aftershock on Boxing Day. They’ve only had two hours daily access to their studio since then (and they used to live above it). The earthquake update page on their website gives an insight into the impact. This time they were safely away at Lake Tekapo with family, and there’s no way they can get back to check for new damage.

Neil and Katherine from Tandem Studio operate mainly from home but they had a rented studio that was damaged in the September quake, so moved to new premises in the Square … right opposite the Cathedral, which crumbled yesterday. They’re fine but Neil says it doesn’t look good for the new studio either.

We don’t do as much business in Christchurch as we’d likely, mainly because there’s a local album company run by a fine gentleman, Brian Whitehouse. I phoned this morning. They have a big clean-up on their hands. Our hearts go out to Brian, his staff and customers, just as they do to our own.

I know there are tragedies around the world daily, but there’s no escaping it, the ones close to home hit deepest. We’re hundreds of miles away and perfectly safe, but close to home is how it feels.

Ian

Update: Photos of Lyttelton and surrounds after the quake;

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Just a heads-up that we expect our phone system to be down for a couple of hours from 4.30pm today New Zealand time while we move to a new server. (click here for the time where you are).

We apologise for any inconvenience but we’ll be back online soon.

Update: Phones are back to normal – thanks for your patience.

Best wishes from everyone at Queensberry.

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After 2-1/2 years Nigel is leaving us to take up a new position as the marketing and comms guy at Medtech Global.

This is short notice because Medtech, which specialises in medical software, is keen to have him in a hurry (we don’t blame them) and we felt able to oblige.

I’m regretting it already, but never mind

Nigel leaves to progress his career with our very best wishes and my personal gratitude for everything he’s done for us while he’s been here. We’re going to miss him.

Don’t be a stranger Nige!

Cheers, Ian

You know Nige is our metrosexual in residence. Maybe he’s leaving ‘cos he gets to wear a suit to work.

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[Edited 6 December.]

UK clients are doubtless aware that VAT rates are increasing from 17.5% to 20% effective from 4 January 2011.

We had understood that it would be necessary for us to charge additional VAT on orders placed but not dispatched before the change date, even if they have been pre-paid, but after reviewing HMRC’s anti-forestalling guidance notes this turns out to be incorrect.

We’re pleased to advise that all orders placed, confirmed and paid for before close-down will incur VAT at the old rate of 17.5%.

If you have any questions about your orders or how we’re handling this change please contact your Account Manager.

All the best from everyone at Queensberry.

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Queensberry and Photojunction’s phone systems will be offline for several hours tomorrow, Friday (November 26) from 4pm New Zealand time as we upgrade and relocate our main phone server.

Click here to check what time that makes it in your part of the world.

During this time all phone functions, including incoming and outgoing calls, and voice mail, will be unavailable.

If you do need to contact us during this time, please email us at info@queensberry.com and our customer service team will be in touch.

We apologise in advance for any disruption this may cause, we’ll be back on line as quickly as we can.

Thanks for your patience.

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Everyone has a story to tell, and for decades our business has been about crafting those stories into beautiful albums to remember forever.

But the way we do so has been changing dramatically.

Earlier this year we released Musée “for people who want only the best” – beautiful photography, discerning design and the best materials in a product that requires the highest level of artisanship to produce.

Our latest project takes us into another world again.

Instead of traditional photographic printing, the Queensberry Press uses digital offset technology to create – not beautiful albums, but beautiful books … and the two are very different.

Our albums are a luxury for many people. Books by their nature are more accessible and affordable. They hold more images, and they’re as comfortable with text as with pictures. All those characteristics open the door to exciting new applications – as companions to a feature album for example, or to record a child’s milestones, a portrait sitting, an anniversary or a reunion.

Now anyone with a story to tell or memories to share can do so.

Tomorrow morning our time we’re holding an impromptu webinar, uncut and unrehearsed.

We’ll talk about the new books and the design thinking behind them, and show you how to create them in Photojunction. We hope you can keep an hour or so free for us.

Click here to register and what time it’ll be in your part of the world.

Meantime…

1. Check out the Queensberry Press on our website.

2. Fire up Photojunction. You’ll be invited to download a new final release with full details of our press products. Have a play if you’re feeling adventurous! Otherwise we’ll demo the new features during the webinar tomorrow.

This is the start of a new adventure for us and we’re pretty excited about it. We hope you’ll enjoy it too.

All the very best from everyone at Queensberry.

Cheers, Ian

PS Here’s the webinar link again. We’ll send out a reminder email an hour or so before it starts. We hope you’ll show up with your usual questions and comments! And we’ll be sending price lists to active clients afterwards.

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If you’re reading this, you’re reading it first, and thank you – we’re very grateful.

But still, we can’t tell you what’s in the box!

We can tell you what it’s not, though. It’s not an iPad or the new MacBook Air (and doesn’t run Android), it’s not a pizza and it’s not an album.

But we do hope to tell you what it is tomorrow. Within the next twenty-four hours. All going well.

As soon as the software’s out, the website’s up and the docs are done we’re holding an impromptu webinar, uncut and unrehearsed. We’ll email you ahead of time. We hope you can keep an hour or so free for us.

If you can’t, we’re glad you’re busy – no bad thing in this day and age! We’ll have the webinar up online asap and will be blogging too.

Back to work – hope to see you on the other side.

Cheers, Ian

PS We’ll love you even more if you spread the word.

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Quick note to let you know we’re taking a break from our weekly webinars this week, but we’ll be back on deck again next week.

We’ve got a couple of interesting new webinars lined up for the coming weeks, including an exciting new Queensberry announcement (more soon), an interview with US photographer Justine Ungaro who you may have seen pimping her new Musée album recently, and a Photojunction webinar covering a series of quick feature tutorials. We’ll see how many Danny can fit into the hour

Keep an eye on our webinar schedule. Details soon.

Take care and see you next week

Cheers, Nigel, Danny and Ian

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Just a quick note to let you know we’ll be offline for an hour or two this afternoon while we finish up some work on a major IT system upgrade we’ve been undertaking.

Here’s what we’re up to.

If you are attempting to upload orders to Queensberry, we suggest you simply leave Photojunction and your computer on and attempting to upload. When the transition is complete the upload should start.

Thanks for your patience

Cheers, Nigel

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