In 1981, I was on a fishing boat chugging from Tulagi to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, taking the Asian Development Bank auditor to catch his plane. He said to me, “Have you heard of a company called Apple?” Ah, no. “They could change your life”, he said. “Anybody can have a computer now, and just imagine what it could do in your warehouse.” Back then, managing a boat yard in the Solomons involved importing everything from hammers and nails, and nuts and bolts, to the Caterpillar engines that drove the ten tuna pole and line catcher boats we were building. Our warehouse was a To View More >>

Like the Chinese gentleman who shared our table for Dim Sum at Aik Hoe, everyone in Penang seems to get by in at least three languages – Chinese, Malay and English. I do admire that in a person because, like most New Zealanders, I'm a monoglot. That wasn't the only reason I liked him, though. He was his own man. At 87, so he should be. Share each dish, he told us, you'll eat less and taste more. Start the day at five. Oatmeal for breakfast keeps you young – I've eaten it almost every day for fifty years. No cream or sugar. Work in your business every day [he has an electrical business with To View More >>

We like to say “We’re local” wherever we do business, but this story is as local as you can get… When we asked our regular clients to complete a survey, we promised a free album to one lucky respondent. We couldn’t believe it when the winner was a New Zealander, Liz March, from our own hometown! In fact she used to work not a mile from the Bindery. When we asked Liz to introduce herself to our readers, this is what she wrote: “About ten years ago I was working as an art teacher at a full immersion Maori school in Glen Eden. On my way to school one morning I picked up a hitchhiker who To View More >>

4. Create Album from Templates Coach reckons this isn't as clever as Divide and Conquer but we think it's really cool. Do you have a collection of templates that you love and use all the time? Click Create Album from Templates, select an image collection and your template collection, and PJ will build an album from the templates and pop all the images in the apertures. Sit back, have a coffee if you're American, or a nice cup of tea if you're a Brit. You Aussies will want a cold one, and as for us in New Zealand, it'll be a nice Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, thank you. Just let PJ do its thing. To View More >>

Click here to watch the video on Vimeo. My father's family came from Westhoughton, only twenty miles or so from where Brett and Kristie Harkness have their studio in the North of England, so we're practically neighbours. Brett's a northerner born and bred (Newcastle), but Kristie's from Saskatchewan, where the population density is only slightly more than that of New Zealand supporters at an English rugby match. In the first of a two-part interview Kristie and Brett tell Ian how they got from working on a cruise ship to their high end studio, and: learning the business side of photography; letting To View More >>