The stranger in the coffee shop looked at us, almost as if we were insane, and said in a tired voice, "Sleep while you can!". It was an ominous warning, over a month ago. We were (Jo was) a month off giving birth and at the time sleeping was getting uncomfortable. On June the 2nd, 2009, Ida Valentina van Kan graced us with her arrival. 7lb 3oz of beautiful girl. [caption id="attachment_3365" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Ida Valentina"][/caption] After 10 days the warning seems premature. Sleep isn't too bad, in fact we feel incredibly lucky. I am learning things from her.  She will let To View More >>

Final feedback from my email, Your next album company Unless you have someone on the ground talking to people you are never going to get the real story... That comment's from the UK, where we actually do have someone on the ground – take a bow, Jo! But Jo, a Londoner, is the exception not the rule. Most of our client support people work from New Zealand. Gino, for example, gets up really early to talk to people in North America, while Kirsten works really late to help Jo with the Brits. But it's great to meet people face-to-face, so why don't we base more people locally? First, where would To View More >>

Heather, Stephen and Danny met international wedding and lifestyle photographers Jeff and Erin Youngren at WPPI this year... We spotted their website and blog recently, and what stood out, and delighted those of us who'd met them, was how the sites reflect Jeff and Erin. A really accurate, personal presentation of the couple. Great marketing, great presentation and great images. Well worth checking out... Click here for The Youngrens website and blog Cheers, Nigel To View More >>

Manpreet Sokhi’s album of Dilip and Anchel’s South Indian Hindu wedding made waves through Queensberry. Talia Neal of our design team worked on the striking photofront cover and it triggered a flood of memories in her. The cover symbol is a representation of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant deity whose influence extends even beyond Hinduism and India. The memories evoked were of Talia's time in Nepal as a teenager working for Sir Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust – memories rubbed raw by the recent passing of Sir Ed, who with Sherpa Tensing Norgay first climbed Mount Everest in 1953. In March To View More >>

We read this by Finao recently : InDesign is becoming more and more popular for album design work, however, we do not recommend it for new designers. Unless you know your stuff with InDesign and consider yourself an InDesign master, don’t use it... There are more variables and settings to check with InDesign. Wrong settings and improperly sized linked images are easy to miss and are common problems we have seen with inexperienced (and even some experienced) users... We have also experienced more problems with file corruptions during upload with improperly exported or converted InDesign files. To View More >>

1.4 million people have seen this movie already, but don't let that stop you. A few days after selling out Boston's Symphony Hall, one of the world's best violinists went busking with his Stradivarius for 43 minutes in a DC metro station. A thousand people streamed past. A handful stopped, nobody clapped ... and he made $32. Grab a coffee and read Gene Weingarten's story in The Washington Post. He arranged the performance as "as an experiment in context, perception and priorities". Do I want to make a cheap marketing point out of this? Not really, but it makes you think. Cheers, Ian PS Sal Criscillo To View More >>

Johannes accused us of hiding our light under a bushel. Not very nice. Is it our fault his friend doesn't know Remix can export HD slideshows? Probably, so here goes. Remix can export HD slide shows ... or iPhone slide shows ... or ... why not customise? Just have a play with the Movie Size pop-up on the slide show settings window. My favourite is Custom, so I'm not stuck with the pre-sets. Cheers, Ian To View More >>

Our UK Account Rep, Jo Newman, emailed me today: I thought you might use Mark's comments as an opportunity to talk more about our plans to XXXXXX XX XXX XXXXXXXX . [Sorry - Ed]  I was a bit disappointed when I saw your second post about Mark's comments.  It didn't mention marketing at all :) In fact I've had a few comments and quite a few emails talking about our brand strategy over the last few days. And Robert emailed me weeks ago saying I should be stressing branding more and pricing less: if photographers don't "foster an expectation consistent with their pricing level" they're fighting a To View More >>

I got an email from Mark Miller today, and he's happy for me to share it and comment. I wanted to let you know how much I've been enjoying Queensberry Connects lately, specifically the posts about how QBY albums differentiate us as photographers from our competition and the idea that press-books are everywhere. I have a couple of comments/questions that I hope might add to the conversation: 1. QBY albums differentiate us as photographers - my clients love my (your) albums but they don't know who Queensberry are (I tell them all about you 'You're the best in the World' etc), but I don't think they To View More >>

When people contact us about their wedding, if they are doing a general search, they most often ask, 'How much to shoot our wedding?' Eventually they get around to 'What do I get?' and finally 'Are you available?' This email just came in. It says it all really.To whom it may concern,Would it be possible to be sent a full price list of your wedding packages?Thanks, Justin We all want our clients to care, because it is the caring that makes them better clients. So what are we selling? Are we selling a product at a price? Are we selling our ability to make great photographs? Are we selling our ability To View More >>