My clients would not dream of paying me $4000 for an empty photo album. Nor would they pay that for a book with somebody else’s photographs in it. They wouldn’t pay me that much even if I supplied them the files to print the images themselves. My clients would pay me $5000 for a book that told a story about themselves that was beautiful, personal, and emotional. The tooth fairy only pays up on the real thing. What is a sample album? Sample albums have several jobs. The main one is to set up an expectation. An expectation of quality, style, and professionalism. Our sample album(s) are what To View More >>

We love it when our clients win awards for their work, especially when our albums are involved. Laura and Marilyn of Natural Expressions recently won the New Hampshire PPA 2008 FujiFilm Masterpiece Award for Photographic Excellence with this beautiful album, which they called "a bright future". Winnie and Sean's wedding, held at a beautiful country club in Massachusetts, was all about a colourful palette, so a colourful album was only appropriate. Laura and Marilyn design a 10x7 Pagemount feature album with a Teal Leather Photo Front cover - Teal Leather chosen to complement one of the couple's To View More >>

.... and we do! Our clients look at the covers on our album samples and make judgements on what is inside. It's true! We help them do it. We want them to look at the cover and suspect that there is something very special inside. It was rewarding to know that when the New Zealand album award judges saw our 2009 award album in the first Musee cover they were wowed into silence. This cover demands respect. Working through the range of covers available to us we have made a studio decision to display a specific look for our albums. This makes them recognisable in the wild and it is our aim to earn To View More >>

Christina and Jesse's album, by 2010 New Zealand photographer of the year Tony Carter, has been on lock-down for the past few months while it was entered into the recent NZIPP Iris Awards. It emerged not long ago sporting a Bronze for the Wedding album category; just one of the awards Tony picked up. Christina and Jesse married in late January at Waiaua Estate, North Taranaki, New Zealand, and went for a wide format 18x10 Duo album... To view more of Tony's work check out his wedding portfolio here. Cheers, Nigel Tony walked away with New Zealand Professional Photographer of the Year for the fifth To View More >>

Hey, you guys are album designers. Check out Johannes van Kan's recent post on the Queensberry Connects, Judging albums for awards. As a judge for the Australian Professional Photography Awards at PMA in Melbourne a week or so ago, he shares some insightful observations and advice about album design... And shares a few pointers for anyone entering albums for awards. Cheers, Nigel To View More >>