What a difference two weeks make. Before the holidays the word of the day was over. Over Work. Over Shopping. Over Eating! Rested and restored the world looks a different place, and the word of the day is new.

New Year. New Treasure Box. New Packaging. New Covers. New Books. New Pages.

We’re welcoming 2015 with our most comprehensive product update in ages. And if you’re going to SWPP in London you'll be first to see them — Stephen and Sonya are looking forward to catching up.

We'll have more about products and prices in just a few days, but meantime, what did we learn from 2014?

We continued to feel positivity bubbling away in our industry — new confidence and a growing clarity — even though some people still believe that professional photography is in decline.

Our own feeling is that there’s a big difference between “decline" and learning how to operate in the middle of enormous change, which is exactly what our customers have been learning to do.

We believe all professionals, whether established or newcomers, increasingly see that they have a clear choice to make: to follow the crowd or take a road less travelled. Which they choose may depend on what they want from professional photography — a little extra income or a sustainable longterm career.

On the one hand the crowd are clear: Digital photography, cloud computing and social media mean images no longer need to be printed, framed or bound. Ever. So, use those tools right and you've got an efficient, engaging, cost-effective workflow. No wonder it's popular.

For the rest of us it’s more complicated. We love the new technology, which is almost as necessary as your camera. But necessary isn’t the same as sufficient. Mr Market doesn’t make exceptions. If you don’t stand out from the crowd you get what the crowd gets, and in professional photography that isn't much.

Successful photographers have always used beautiful products, presentation and printing to stand out from the crowd, to help justify the prices that their work deserves, and to generate additional sales opportunities.

Everything’s changed, but that remains the same. And that’s why we’ll be so excited to show you our new release.

Everyone at Queensberry wishes you a happy and a prosperous 2015.

Cheers
Ian