"Value your time, skill, training and art" - Today we're talking to Lauren & Delwyn about the photography industry, designing albums and building your brand.  • Tell us a bit about yourselves and how you got into photography Delwyn and I are both trained Graphic Designers, Delwyn at Unitec, and myself at Waikato University. We met through a mutual workplace in 2008, and started second shooting weddings for each other. • How do you promote your business and build your brand? We work hard to create a strong 'word of mouth' brand. We also take advantage of the internet as much as we can To View More >>

Last week was fantastic! Our free design and colour correction announcement generated more comments and support suite enquiries than anything else we've ever done. And it started a lot of conversations with people about how it would work in practice, and how they could use it to increase their sales. What's driving this free service is the change in our industry, with more photographers adopting the line that albums aren't worth the time and aggravation. That attitude isn't new, and we think it's always been nonsense, but the best way to challenge it is to eliminate the "time and aggravation", To View More >>

Our clients featured strongly again this year among the winners of the 2009 Annabel Williams Contemporary Photographic Training (CPT) Awards. Sarah Wright took out the Queensberry-sponsored Portrait Album category (we featured the wedding album category winner a few days ago). Ex-CPT student Sarah submitted this design of a portrait shoot of a teenager shot in the Borde Hill Gardens - a country estate in the South of England. “The subject really wanted a rural shoot as he loved the country side and country clothing – so I utilised the Estate’s striking features like the wrought iron gates, To View More >>

We've been off-line since the weekend – nearing the end of a fraught server upgrade! We apologise for the lack of communication. One of the consequences is that we haven't been able to read your mail in support suite - it's there but we can't access it - but at least there are still flesh and blood people working on your albums, and we'll email everyone as soon as we're up and running again. Shouldn't be long. To View More >>

I spent my lunch hour reading a forum post (not here obviously!) about "the best album template software". I guess I may be preaching to the choir, but... 1. Are "clunky" and/or "badly supported" the most common descriptors for album planning software? (We know Remix is "v1.0" right now, but check out our forums - we're committed!) 2. So, why not design your albums in Photoshop? It's exceptional software, but even Adobe doesn't suggest that's a good idea. Adobe's layout software is InDesign, part of Creative Suite. Another great application - we use both ourselves. 3. But what does InDesign know To View More >>