Back in 1996 Heather and I walked into the beautiful Hotel Metropole in Hanoi for lunch, and I don't think the staff were pleased to see us. We'd been back-packing around Vietnam for two weeks, we looked the part, and we'd brought our packs with us! Not normal for fine dining, even at lunchtime. But the staff very nicely gave us a table, and waited for us to order the (very affordable) lunchtime special. Instead, we proceeded to make up for two weeks of roughing it. We ate everything we could fit in, and then some. It was fantastic. Meantime the suits and the frocks around us looked mildly disapproving, 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 >>

Our first Northern Hemisphere show was in Birmingham UK in 2001, when we shared a booth at FOCUS with the Guild of Photographers. We did so well we decided to fly solo at WPPI the following year. Our first time in Vegas! At that first show I turned up late on Day One because of a minor drama back home. It was amazing. Our little team (with an Aussie customer in support) were red-faced and practically shouting to make themselves heard to photographers piled up like driftwood round our booth. We had a blast for three days, heading back to the Casino in the evenings for a quiet drink in the din of To View More >>

Simon Woolf is one of my favourite people. One of our longest-standing clients and quite possibly the most energetic person I know (if you don't believe me check out his Facebook page). He sells beautiful landscapes from his shop in Wellington's Cable Car Lane – access way to one of Wellington's top tourist attractions. One day Simon saw a tourist photographing one of his landscapes through the display window, and posted about it on Facebook. "I asked her for a look, and she stated, 'It wasn't a bad copy but was a little light'. I then told her I was the photographer, and she was being a bit To View More >>

My two children are getting married, and In Part 1 I talked about how my eyes have been opened by the experience. What would my kids get if they hired a "professional photographer” for $3500.00 or so? Generally the photographer's time on the day, a DVD, no post work, often from someone who doesn't know how to give a "wedding day experience" on top of everything else. $3500 feels like too much money for that, but as I pointed out, the wholesale costs involved are too high to expect much more. Prices like that encourage couples to go shopping with unrealistically low budgets for photography … To View More >>