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 >>

Pete started off his recent posts by saying that colour management is one of the cornerstones of digital photography, but often misunderstood. Let me describe what you can reasonably expect from a sound colour management system consistently applied (certainly not miracles!). What you can expect 1. A reasonable indication of what your final print will look like (assuming you're sending the files print-ready). 2. To avoid gross errors (an Adobe 1998 file treated as if it's sRGB will look strikingly different, especially if colours go out of gamut). 3. Predictability: You can send your files to the To View More >>

No-one likes piracy, so how can you stop people stealing your digital images? There is only one sure method: Store your data on a computer in a secure office - and don't connect it to the internet. I'm not kidding. I was speaking to a commercial lawyer friend who deals with multi-million dollar litigation, and if his stuff is super-confidential, that's exactly what he does. Recently we had an irate client complain that some of her images had been pirated from Workspace, and ask how we could let that happen. She explained how it was done (I'm not going to tell you) and she was quite right. Within To View More >>

To help promote our professional clients we've just updated the Queensberry photographer directory. You can now include up to four images to show off your work. Listings are absolutely free - so if you haven't already, now's the time to add some images and get the Queensberry website working for you. The directory link is right on our home page (Where To Buy) and gets a lot of traffic. When visitors open the directory it automatically searches for photographers closest to them, but they can also enter another location. Listings with images rank first - but distance from the search location and To View More >>

This is a long post, so I’m starting with the short story! Some people are upset about the terms of trade for our new web-based lab service, Queensberry Print. We want to clarify that, yes, Queensberry Print products are available to both professional photographers and end-consumers. Certainly, “consumer” means “everyone”, but in reality we believe these products will only be of real interest to professionals, serious amateur photographers, and people who received digital files from a professional and who really care how their photos are printed. Our existing range To View More >>

We often get asked how Queensberry started. Well, I came home from university one day to find Heather had bought a set of of leather-working tools so she could make a handbag for her mother! I never imagined it would be the start of a business that's been growing for more than forty years. It's literally in her blood. Her great-grandfather produced opera and made saddles as a hobby (she cried when she discovered that). Her grandfather was head designer at Selfridges. Her father, her brother, her uncles and aunts are, or were, all involved in painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, wood and metal To View More >>

Let me tell you a story about why we're in the album business, why we believe in brand building, and why you should too. Don't tell anyone but you're looking at two early Queensberries from the days when albums weren't everything we do. It may look a bit tired but the old wallet on top has excellent provenance, as they say. In 1990 Stephen brought his new fiancée home from Brisbane to meet his family in New Zealand. He gave her the Queensberry tour, saw the wallet and asked could he have it? Heather gave it to him. (I hope she gave Sonya something too!) Years passed. We stopped making wallets. To View More >>

The Image College in association with Queensberry, is bringing Johannes van Kan to Australia for a brief visit in August/September to present one day seminars in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. The heart and soul of the high end wedding album Winner of the 2010 WPPI Album of the Year, and multiple winner of the NZIPP Iris Awards Wedding Album of the Year, Johannes van Kan is one of an elite group of world class photographers creating profoundly beautiful albums for his wedding clients. In this event Johannes will take you on a journey beginning with: - Why he does what he does - The thought processes To View More >>

Ian spotted a post by New Zealand photographer Isaac de Reus of Perspectives Photography on DWF recently. It was in reply to a thread discussing whether giving your work away free for referrals was good business practice. Isaac shared this great example of how he's leveraged something he can do in return for good quality referrals. The type everyone wants. High-end. It also shows the value of keeping your finger on the wider wedding market's pulse. Thanks for sharing, Isaac - Nigel A month or so ago we approached a very high-end, exclusive venue that only recently started booking and advertising To View More >>