"I'm going to interview Simon Whitten while I'm in the UK," I said to Heather, "Short story - what springs to mind?" "Stately homes ... panoramic images ... simple, classic album designs," she said. Simon has established a solid business at the very top of the UK wedding market, and what struck me about our conversation was his confidence and clarity in talking about it. To succeed in this business requires a lot more than photographic passion and skills. You need a clear understanding of your market position, your clientele and where they come from, your brand and how you project it. The low end To View More >>

Relationships with local wedding venues are a great way to build a strong wedding and portrait business, and a beautiful display album featuring the venue works well for both parties. Simon Whitten is a long-standing and valued Queensberry client from Yorkshire in England. His association with the luxury castle hotel Swinton Park is very important to him, and for years his Queensberry sample album has rested on the piano in the drawing room. When the time came to update it, the question was “with what?” These days most of his clients tend towards the 14x10 Duo that Simon prefers. But feeling To View More >>

Simon Whitten of SMW Photography has an interesting perspective on timelessness. He says the albums he's designing today should have looked current ten or twenty years ago, not just years into the future. That's the real test of timelessness, he says. That philosophy underlies his approach to album design - simple and uncluttered. We've featured Simon's work on Queensberry Connects before, but we grabbed this album for the beautifully simple design and the thought behind it ... He created a 14x10 Duo album for clients Charlotte and James and also made a stunning 18x10 Silk display sample for the To View More >>

Happy New Year! The trade show season will be pretty much be on top of us once we get back from our annual close-down, so here's where we'll be and when.  SWPP: 16-18 January 2009 WPPI: 16-18 February 2009 Focus: 22-25 February 2009 We'd love to catch up with you so if you are attending any of these shows, swing by and say hi. Our staff will be on hand at each show with our newest products including the new format 20x16 and 18x10 album formats, as well as samples of our new Micro Leathers, Silks, and Micro Suede cover materials. Hope to see you there. Best wishes from the Queensberry Sales To View More >>

Chances are you've never been to Marfa, but as it happens we have. It's a tiny town set in the vastness of West Texas (population 2000+) and obviously thriving. Halfway between El Paso and the awesome Big Bend Park, Marfa is surrounded by towns in decline. It used to be a water stop on the railway, and a massive army base, but the trains went diesel and the army left town. So why isn't the town dying, like most of its neighbours seem to be? A minimalist artist called Donald Judd came to town in search of a spectacular landscape to display his massive artworks. An interesting guy ... and other To View More >>

Last week was fantastic! Our free design and colour correction announcement generated more comments and support suite enquiries than anything else we've ever done. And it started a lot of conversations with people about how it would work in practice, and how they could use it to increase their sales. What's driving this free service is the change in our industry, with more photographers adopting the line that albums aren't worth the time and aggravation. That attitude isn't new, and we think it's always been nonsense, but the best way to challenge it is to eliminate the "time and aggravation", To View More >>

I have a friend going back to work full time after working part time for six years to raise his kids. Some weeks ago he phoned me, incredibly disheartened after many job applications and many knock backs. No one wanted him. I encouraged him to stop treating each job interview as make or break, and to start playing. To apply for jobs he thought he couldn't get. At salary ranges he thought he couldn't justify. To mix it up, try something different each time and see what worked. The trick, I said, was to remember that his next interviewer would know nothing about his past interviews, and it wouldn't To View More >>

Today we're announcing free album design and free standard colour correction on all our professional albums - Flushmount, Overlay Matted, Classic Matted and Duo. Here's why... When we're discussing how we can improve our products and services, we ask ourselves three questions: Can we make it fun? Will it save you time? Will it make you money? This time we're aiming for all three :) Many of our customers pay us to colour correct their images. Many pay us to design their albums as well. Many more wish they could afford to do the same. ALL OF YOU are going to enjoy one of two things. A fresh chance To View More >>

[caption id="attachment_17731" align="alignnone" width="500"] © James Yeats-Brown[/caption] James Yeats-Brown is a leading UK social photographer specialising in children's portraiture and the creation of family albums. He asks why shooting for a fee or commission shouldn't work in the social sector, since it's common in other areas of photography, and thinks a sales model based purely on speculative product upselling is dangerous these days - mainly thanks to new consumer-oriented products from Apple, Blurb, Photobox etc. This began as a comment on Ian's post suggesting the Shoot and Share model To View More >>

When was the last time you opened one of these? Ours go straight in the recycling. What happens when you (or your customers) decide you're over Facebook, or stop clicking on Google Adwords? In this video Gary Vaynerchuk asks a bunch of event marketers how many of them said five years ago that they'd never have a Facebook account … but now they do. He says we need to ask ourselves where our customers will be hanging out in two years time. Hey, you could be on Snapchat or Vine! There's no point fishing in the wrong spot, and those fish are schooling all over the place. Partly because marketers To View More >>