There's a framed photo of Heather and me that's thirty years old now and been on the wall above my desk for the last fourteen. It was shot by Rod Ellmore in 1994 while our whole family was together in Auckland. When I look at it I think: “Didn’t we look cute thirty years ago? And I had hair! Remember how those Lockwood houses creaked? The bloody dog ruined that couch… Love the Indian parchment — still on the wall… What happened to those Churchill books? The printing is like new… Those shoes were great…” In another thirty To View More >>

At an event like a wedding, who knows what you’re photographing? You might have the last ever photo of Aunty Em with her boys, or the best ever photo of the bride’s school friends, or the only ever photo with her sister who came all the from South Africa. They may not even be very good — but you don’t know their significance, and they didn’t really cost you anything (unless you spent ages on them in post-production). So you can afford to be generous with them. That's the very best reason I can think of for supplying the digital files as part of a wedding To View More >>

Personally, I've had nothing to do with school photographers since I lined up for my own class photos, but I do pay attention to what Queensberry's clients do, and they're an important subset of our customer base. I think there's a lot to learn from them because they're serious about business and big on "systems". They need to be, given that a school gig might involve dozens of classes, each with thirty-odd kids, most of them with parents — potential customers — whom they've never met. Imagine if the way it worked was that they all emailed, To View More >>

“Okay… what should I be offering?” The answer will depend on your clients — and your photographic genre . Each genre requires different presentation. For example, a wedding photographer, with potential sales of hundreds of images, will require completely different products from a landscape specialist offering images intended for wall display. Bear in mind too that the most appropriate printing isn't just a personal preference but will depend on the products you want to offer. For example, we recommend silver halide over inkjet for applications To View More >>

Gary Vaynerchuk said something about the worst thing you can do in business is to be romantic about how you make your money. But show me a photographer who doesn't love taking pictures.  In fact I just wrote two rather emotional posts myself about professional photography. So I thought I'd set out the unromantic business reasons to sell products. Not how to sell or what to sell, but why.  And yes, we make the products, so of course we’d love you to sell them, but this is what's in it for you. We call them the three Ps. 1. You benefit from the sale of the To View More >>