One of our members has tried to contact their usual album supplier only to find they had ceased trading. We followed this up by trying to contact the company but could not get a reply of any sort.
Further checks with a major UK photography lab confirmed the fact that Middlewall have ceased trading.
We must point out that we have not been able to confirm this with the company themselves but we have no reason to doubt what we have been told.
Our enquiries also revealled strong rumours that an Italian supplier very well known in the UK for many years appears to have some serious commercial issues too. Hope not!
Where are we going?
Not surprising when both we as photographers and the album manufacturers are facing competition from uncle Joe with his 'big' digital camera and cheap albums available on the internet. It does seem that fewer and fewer people are valuing our work and are going for a quick, cheap solution. A number regret it afterwards, but by then it is too late. I saw in the MPA mag that the only ones to survive will be those chasing the high spender weddings. Let me know where they are please 'cos there are none around here.
Having said that I notice other folk are saying how we must push folk to buying the £3000 pound album package. in my area they want the whole wedding for that. I was once recently asked if the price I had quoted for a couple of ours shooting at a wedding of £60 included the album. How can you fight mindsets like that?
We need to offer quality at affordable prices and I am afraid that is increasingly harder to do, especially when the customers who want quality are increasingly hard to find.
Best wishes
Mike
I agree with what Mike says. I find G F Smith of Hull very good quality and with excellent service. If you use their design service and what's known as the Rhapsody Album, 25 images over 20 pages costs just short of £140.00 – obviously you'd whack on a bit to make a profit but having got a sample album and shown it to several prospective customers it's well worth the money and people will pay that sort of money for what I see as a quality album – all in a quality cloth cover and even better quality presentation box – obviously more images/pages puts the price up. All the best,
Phil