Chaos theory has a metaphor for the way trivial occurrences can have significant consequences: it's the butterfly effect. We're proud of Johannes' post of that name in which he explains why he's a Queensberry partisan. It's about a serendipitous image that won him his first NZIPP Gold, caught Heather's and my eyes … and led to a relationship that's lasted eighteen years. So far. All because his tripod collapsed. That relationship has been positive for us in so many ways, and we hope it's been good for Johannes too. One of the benefits has a really old name: word of mouth. Johannes has a great To View More >>

[caption id="attachment_7050" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Musée 10x7 dark tan; photography and page layout design by Johannes van Kan"][/caption] If you read my Musée story recently, you’ll recall it ended with a cliff-hanger … but it turned out well. You may remember we’d made an album featuring Christian [Oth's] images, but he'd never seen it. We were nervous. Well we finally did catch up, and he loved it. Then Johannes [van Kan’s] album of Virginia and Richard’s wedding won at WPPI. You can view his complete album on Youtube (no audio) or Vimeo (recommended: this is the To View More >>

The Junction has been a bit quiet lately so I thought I would talk to you about what the developers have been brewing. I have a lot of fruit trees at my place but two of my favorites are a Peachcot and a Peacharine. These are cross pollinations between a peach and an apricot and a peach and a nectarine. Individually beautiful to eat, but when you blend the two together you get something special. The guys at Queensberry and Photojunction have been doing a bit of cross pollinating of their own. Press albums are the new kid on the block for us. Taking two products, both beautiful in their own right, To View More >>

Johannes has a better metaphor, but the photo is from iStock. - Ed. The Bumble Bee Effect. Different to the Butterfly Effect because they haven't made a movie of the same name with at least two sequels. The Bumble Bee effect is all about buzz and pollen. It's about being talked about. We successfully did so by putting on an earthquake (a really big one). There are other ways to create a buzz that are much more positive. Obvious buzz topics are awards, photographing the wedding of Kate and Prince William, standing tall in the face of adversity, scandal, heroism, and achievement. (Actually 'scandal' To View More >>

Danny and I just had a great chat with Pete, who runs Order Processing at the Lab. According to Pete, this year OP was able to clear the "Christmas Rush" almost completely in a single day. That's amazing. It means the automation we put in place in Photojunction this year (fondly known as PJ Nana) definitely works. Pete really wanted to talk about the handful of orders where his team had to go back and sort out problems with their clients (things like missing files or flattened JPG layouts received for full colour service). As a result we came up with a few ways to make Nana even better, but most To View More >>