Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook If the first time you think about me is when you realise I’m blocking the sale, too late! Some years back there was a young man called Nigel working at Queensberry. He was about to get married, and that's how the following exchange got started. It prompted me to write a post in which I said that, to hear people talk, you’d think that only two people are involved in buying a wedding album – the bride and her mother. Same with portrait shoots, I was sure. I couldn't imagine To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook Our brand isn’t a look but a promise kept — not what we say but what we do. Value Imagine if you said, “I want you to pay me what you think I’m worth.” Most people would imagine themselves out of business. We need to tell our clients what we’re worth, and live up to our rhetoric. What is the value of your work to people who don’t know you, or how much they should be paying? The value of a compelling and authentic brand is that it tells people the price of entry and helps them see it’s worth To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next  Download the eBook Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. Be yourself Heather and I have been friends with a particular couple since our kids were pre-schoolers, which is some time ago. She’s got progressive musical tastes. He likes Simon and Garfunkel. She’s been complaining for forty years about Neil Young’s whiny voice. He’s been complaining that Bob Dylan can’t sing at all. I don’t care. What would they know? Not everyone likes Neil’s voice, or Bob’s, or what they have to say, but everyone knows them, To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook Model yourselves on people who’ve built long, profitable careers — those who get as much fun out of making a sale as taking a picture. Predictions Here are some predictions for you: Over the course of your career new cameras and technology will continue to make it ever easier for anyone to take a half-decent picture and share it with their friends and family. Even so, many people will continue to make a good living using skills that they share with most people on the planet (not just photography — writing, cooking, To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook “Your lizard brain wants you to be average.” — Seth Godin When it comes to building a long term career in professional photography, many are called but few are chosen. That’s another major lesson from our five decades in this business. Not everyone can make it to the top, although anyone can be busy if they slash their prices. Busy is one thing. Busy, happy and successful is a bit more complicated. Here are the key points you need to bear in mind if you want to stake your claim closer to the higher end of the To View More >>

As everyone knows, Covid has been very disruptive for business — from product availability to courier services to prices — and it’s starting to feel like the “new normal”. So we’re starting the year with an updated cover material range, and a new strategy to move this forward in the future. We’re excited about it, but we also know that any change can raise questions, which we’ve tried to answer in advance here. We’d love your feedback! Please take a few minutes to read the following, but if you just want to see the updates follow To View More >>

We're glad to announce that Afterpay (known as Clearpay in the UK) is now supported in Workspace Client Galleries and Print Shop. Afterpay is a payment method that allows your customers to "buy now and pay later". It's particularly popular among ecommerce businesses, and, according to Afterpay, the buy now, pay later approach maximises customer purchasing power. Their retailers report as much as a 50% increase in average order value, and 2-3x more units per transaction. Read on to learn more! What is Afterpay (Clearpay)? Afterpay gives your customers a way to pay for their purchases 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 >>

If you heven't logged into Workspace for a while you may be surprised next time by a very different looking platform. That’s because our December upgrade has now been rolled out. Here's what we've done. Interface upgrade (updated, simpler, more intuitive) Although much of what we've done in this upgrade is "behind the scenes", we’ve also worked hard on the user interface. We've gone for a cleaner, more contemporary look, refined things to keep pace with evolving web design standards, and repositioned and relabelled buttons and other calls To View More >>

Albums are a blank canvas on which to express your personal style and taste, and we love seeing the variety that comes through the Bindery. This week's album caught our attention with its brightly coloured graffiti backgrounds and interesting design. When we asked Daniel if we could feature it, he shared with us the humorous, heartwarming story of how the couple first met – as told by them, from both sides. Talk about a meet-cute! It reminded us of something important — "It's not about the album, it's about the photography." … But dig deeper and it's To View More >>