Here are three photos that won’t mean much to you but mean everything to me. They explain why I love wedding albums. The first is from my parents’ wedding in 1945, a beautiful sepia print in a classic folder. Young as he looks, Dad had just returned from five years at war. The girl on the left is his younger sister. Seven years later she married the young man on the right. Like my parents they were together for 55 years. The other woman is my mother’s best friend. I remember her, but she died quite young. The other uniformed man is my father’s best friend. I’m writing 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 >>

Being half way across the world (literally!) I couldn’t have felt further away from the Royal Wedding two years ago. But after reading photographer Gavin Dickson’s description of the day, it transported my mind back to Westminster Abbey, and I re-lived the wonder, expectation and emotion all over again! Gavin said that at the time of the Royal Wedding he was "Chief Photographer at the Express & Star, the United Kingdom's biggest selling regional newspaper and I knew a couple of months in advance that I'd be photographing the Royal wedding in London.” Gavin was one of the To View More >>

THANKS FOR THE AMAZING RESPONSE AND KIND COMMENTS, EVERYONE. THIS PROMOTION IS NOW CLOSED. The festive season is fast approaching and we're in the mood to spread a little cheer. So we're opening up our santa sack to give one of our beautiful Press Books to a lucky photographer this Christmas. Up to US$400 value, which will get you a beautiful book! How to enter: 1. It's as simple as leaving a comment on this post! 2. For a second entry, share a link to this giveaway on Facebook or Twitter. Leave a second comment with a link to your shout out. Maximum two entries per person. So what are you waiting To View More >>

Looking through the design workshop yesterday I discovered a book I made nearly twenty years ago. It reminded me how grateful I am to one of my mentors, the bookbinder Michael O’Brien, a man of enormous talent, insight and good humour, and without a doubt the most eccentric person I’ve ever met. I met Michael in 1994, just before he moved his workshop from Auckland to the South Island. One of the books he was working on was for a European art collector, to mount his Picasso drawings. This was a revelatory experience for me. Do people like this exist? Do they pay thousands of dollars for books? To View More >>