Reading Dad's post about treating people as individuals reminded me of sitting in Air New Zealand's LAX lounge a few years ago. I was working on my laptop when this attractive woman sat down next to me and asked if I had the wireless login. Sorry," I said, "the wifi is playing up - you'll need a cable from the front desk". She turned her computer towards me and said, "It's OK, I have a Mac". :) "So do I, but you'll still need a cable," I said. "Look, I have to go confirm my seat - I'll get one for you." She smiled and said thank you. A few minutes later I returned and helped her get her computer To View More >>

Sales are coming along nicely for our new Queensberry Print range, thank you! Our introductory special offer is over, but as promised we've just introduced 15% trade discount on Queensberry Print products - for professional photographers only. Here's how you qualify. If you're an existing client with an approved account you will automatically qualify for the discount for the next twelve months. The discount will be deducted in your Workspace shopping cart as you place your order. If you open a new account you will qualify for twelve months from the date your account is approved. After twelve months To View More >>

A series about storytelling in album design. Every great story has a beginning, a middle and an end Part of what makes a story interesting is the way it's told. It pulls you in, leads you along a path of discovery and ends with a satisfying finale. I've already mentioned the importance of chronology, and I'll have more about the middle later, but what's the secret to a strong beginning and a satisfying ending? The beginning Writers spend a lot of time on their first paragraphs. They know if they don't kindle your interest they leave you cold. If you're not sure what should go on your first page To View More >>

A series about storytelling in album design. We turn the page in a wedding album… It's night time and we're at the reception. We turn another page… We're back outside the church in bright daylight! How confusing is that? Not only is the mood of the imagery completely different, the natural flow of the story is disrupted and any feeling of the 'journey' is lost. Chronology creates flow It may sound too basic to mention, but sticking to the order of the day helps make your images into a story. It also speeds up album design by predetermining the order you lay them out on the pages. Here's something To View More >>

Right up there with the 3% rule as a Queensberry mantra is Good Better Best. We don't claim that either of them is original, just that they're common sense. In fact fundamental if you want to build a sustainable longterm career. Good Better Best is a strategy for up-selling – having products and services to tempt your clients across a range of price points. To be blunt, you're offering your customers what they want (something cheap!) while at the same time encouraging them to spend more. Simply put, it does so by offering people three choices… GOOD is your entry level – affordable if you To View More >>

Spot the difference? Yes, one photo's new, one's old. One's in colour, but they're both gold. Rivers of gold! Sure, the new gold is data, but like the old gold it's hard to mine. They reckon perhaps 3,500,000,000,000 photos have been taken in human history, and maybe 3,500,000,000 of those in the last twelve months. Even the people who took them know that most of them are crap! Digging for gold in that lot is like panning for gold in that river. Tough work and hardly anyone's going to do it. Want to do your photos a favour? Pick the best ones (one in ten? a hundred?) and delete the rest. Don't To View More >>

The other day I proposed a way to encourage enquirers to look past your prices and make personal contact. It was partly a way to start identifying people who should be your clients, and withdrawing (politely) from those who probably shouldn't. You need to demonstrate to the first group why you’re the right photographer to spend their wedding day with! The 3% rule The 3% rule is our way of saying that you can't succeed by trying to appeal to everyone, and you definitely shouldn't try. It stems from the time, years ago, when we tried to estimate the number of professional photographers in the To View More >>

Pete and Ian have been blogging about colour management systems and how they help to ensure your image editing work delivers predictable colour and high-quality printing. But there's a lot to think about! Even the light you're working in can affect the results … or the clothes you're wearing, or the colour of your walls. So what could be easier? Getting us to do the work! Here's an incredibly simple new service, and a special offer: Batch Colour Correction by Queensberry in Lightroom. You can use our plugins, no matter where you are in the world, to send us DNG files from raw images you select To View More >>

Have you seen the movie Hitchcock yet? Even without hobbits, elves and superheroes it's very entertaining. Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma were a family business, as many people reading this probably are, and it's interesting to watch the movie through that lens... 1. The movie focuses on the making of Psycho. No one else believed in the project, so they mortgaged their house to make it. Sound familiar? 2. They worked best when they worked together. He was the famous one but Alma was clearly important to his success. 3. They made Psycho come alive in the editing room by arguing about the little To View More >>

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 >>