The other day we received an invoice from Queensberry and my wife (the fabulous Jo Grams) exclaimed, 'Crikey!' (she's Australian). It was a lot of money for an album! Too much? We talked about it and came to the conclusion that we were getting what we were paying for. We want to give our clients the best we can deliver. This means many things, not the least of which is getting them the best albums we can. We could reduce our personal costs by using less expensive covers, mounting systems, and not getting the full colour service, BUT would the outcome still fit into the requirement of giving our To View More >>

.. that you are selling to? I read Ian's post yesterday and thought he had some really good points, but I wanted to add to the discussion by drilling down another layer to ask, "Who is the man you are selling to?" Here are a few possibilities and I am sure you are easily able to add more (so feel free to contribute your thoughts): 1 The besot - hopelessly in love and a cinch for a big album. 2 The control freak - Needs to believe that they have choices. The choices empower them and allow them to "own the outcome". 3 The accountant - The value of the album is a number: that value equates to a certain To View More >>

I've gathered enough gongs now to qualify for an opinion on album design. Last week I was a judge for the Australian Professional Photography Awards at PMA in Melbourne. This was an honour I shared with the lovely Jo Grams, Jerry Ghionis, Jackie Chan, Yervant and other luminaries. Several things became apparent: 1) Some authors treated the album as a set of individual prints, mixing black and whites with colours, verticals with horizontals, with blatant disregard for the influence of those images on each other. 2) Some authors were hypnotised by the ability to apply a filter to create a look ... To View More >>

"The brides love seeing themselves": In our final installment Jerry explains how blogging generates bookings and sales, the benefits from clients look forward to seeing themselves online – and the serendipity by which he ended up shooting his first wedding in India. Click here for the audio (8:21 mins). Thanks for listening and sorry once again for the audio quality. Cheers, Ian To View More >>

More wisdom from the over-30s... ;) In this segment Jerry Tomko tells Heather and me why he won't take a wedding booking without an album, why the lady in his bagel shop doesn't like digital and what's wrong with shoot-and-burn. And Heather talks about the only question many photographers know to ask about albums ... and what's wrong with the question. Click here to listen (9:52 mins). More soon. Cheers, Ian PS Apologies again for the audio quality. To View More >>