Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook Competing on price is tough when what you’re selling is your time. Your business model is different Visa,MasterCard and Paypal make huge amounts by clipping a tiny percentage off every purchase we make. Lucky them. Microsoft and Adobe make a fortune by charging hundreds for something that costs them less than a dollar to produce. You’re not that lucky. You have to charge hundreds (or thousands) for something that nobody needs, and only a handful of people want. So … what do you do? How much? There are two questions To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook "They’re proud of their family or their new baby. Proud of their farm, cars, horses, dogs. Proud of the party they put on for the wedding..." Pride — personal and professional We’re in the “love” business, yes, but we’re in the pride business too. Professional pride in your case, but with your clients it’s personal… They’re proud of their family or their new baby. Proud of their farm, cars, horses, dogs. Proud of the party they put on for the wedding — the location, the spread, To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook There’s no room in this business for cynics. Ambassadors of Love Sure you love photography … but then this whole business is about love. Love and other emotional drivers — like the desire for connection, significance, family pride, and the human need to remember and be remembered. My Dad wanted a photo of my mother to fit in the breast pocket of his battle tunic in North Africa. Eighty years later I still have it. They married after the war. We have a few formal group photos. All us kids can do is try and judge what To View More >>

We very rarely share the positive reviews we receive from our clients but the other day we received a pretty special one from one of our new Print Shop users, Damien Lovegrove. He's a "go for it" guy who'd launched his store within a week of deciding to use Print Shop, and within days of that made his first large format canvas sale. We're sharing his review for two reasons: It offers great advice for anyone starting out — why he chose the platform, and the challenges he faced when setting it up. If you're already using Print Shop we'd love your thoughts over on the insider about what features To View More >>

Someone asked the other day why some photographers using Print Shop seem to be selling their prints “quite cheaply”. "I can understand that there is potentially volume in art prints that isn't there with portraits. But I still wonder how a client might feel if the price is significantly lower for an art print." I think there are a few questions here — does the difference in price matter? Are people undercharging? — and anyway, how much should you charge? I'll leave the last one for later, but meantime… 1. Why might you need to charge differently for your art versus To View More >>

When we first launched Print Shop in Workspace people asked, “How do I know which images will sell? And which products?” They're excellent questions — and yes we do have ideas about what works, because we print and create the products! But we can't generalise. Every photographer is different and so is every photographer's work and audience. You need to find what works for you. Let's be clear, this is not expensive. It's not like you're stocking a shop with stuff that might or might not sell. In Print Shop everything will be printed and handmade To View More >>

There are only a few weeks in Winter where the setting sun can beam its light all the way through New Zealand’s Milford Sound, and I was dedicated to getting the perfect photograph of it. But when I set that goal I had no idea it would take me four years to accomplish. After three years of trying, my fourth trip to the Sound left me with some of my strongest memories, and taught me a lot. It was my last, eighth day of waiting: getting wet in the bush, heavy rain clouds hanging above me, and no signs of any light passing through the sounds. Disappointed with my fourth unsuccessful trip, I To View More >>

After more than fifteen years in the business, UK photographer Simon Whitten of Firehorse Photography & Filming has covered more than 600 weddings on four continents. He's has been a friend of Queensberry for much of his career. Simon is strong-minded character who believes that the key to success is to find your own way and stand out from the crowd. "Don't follow the latest fads or fashions," he says, "or you will only ever be a follower, and always late to the party." We asked him a few questions about how that's reflected in his life and work… Simon's first To View More >>

Jessica Reeves claims to have been "very average" at school — "never did badly, never did amazingly well". But after two years as a photographer she's come to believe that this is something she can be great at and love at the same time. Ideal foundations on which to build a career! The biggest lesson she's learned is very simple: make friends. "Running your own business can be pretty lonely, especially at the beginning when you feel you are running along with a blindfold on. Making friends with other photographers, or others in the industry, takes a huge To View More >>

THE DOLPHIN, THE GAZELLE, THE CHEETAH AND THE LION Originally published on The Candid Eye, what makes this post by James Yeats-Brown so compelling is that its passion comes from James' clients as much as from him. A lovely and revealing insight into the motivation behind family photography. - Ian When I arrived at Mike and Clare’s house, Mike was wielding a pen-knife in boy scout fashion and excitedly removing an old sepia photograph from a crumbling frame. The image depicted a formal group at a wedding, a family gathering posed in a static arrangement to allow To View More >>