New Photo Agendas

First off, let me say, I’ve been thrilled with the response to the Beautiful Belgium photography book. I’ve sold out of my first batch of books and I have more on the way. If you live near Brussels, you can order a copy from me directly and I will sign it for you. Contact me for details.

For those of you outside of the city, or country for that matter, never fear. I have a special deal for you. Until the end of November, Blurb, the lovely company that publishes my books, is offering a 10$ off promotion. You can receive this discount on a single item that costs 29.95$ or more, by using the promo code BIG TEN when you check out. That means Beautiful Belgium is 10$ cheaper! It’s a great deal and in plenty of time for your holiday gift shopping.

Speaking of holiday gifts, I’ve just added some great new gift items to my range of photography books – Blank Notebooks and 2012 Agendas!

These notebooks and agendas are the same high-quality books as the Beautiful Belgium Photo book.  They are available in three different themes each – Beautiful Belgium, Fabulous Flowers and The Timeless Garden.

The Notebooks have 100 pages and include 17 full-colour photos. The other pages are lined for use as a journal. (If you are interested in notebooks with unlined pages, please contact me)

The 2012 agendas include 12 full-colour photographs beside monthly calendars. Weekly agenda pages offer plenty of room to write notes and appointments.

Interested in a specific theme? Contact me about designing a notebook or agenda just for you.

Check out the book previews below and order now for the holidays! Don’t forget to use the discount code BIG TEN before November 30th. Order the books on-line now.

2012 Agendas

The Beautiful Belgium 2012 Agenda by Alison Cornford-Matheson | Make Your Own Book

Fabulous Flowers 2012 Agenda by Alison Cornford-Matheson | Make Your Own Book

The Timeless Garden 2012 Agenda by Alison Cornford-Matheson | Make Your Own Book

Notebooks and Journals

Fabulous Flowers Notebook by Alison Cornford-Matheson | Make Your Own Book

The Timeless Garden Notebook by Alison Cornford-Matheson | Make Your Own Book

Beautiful Belgium

After the success of the Forgotten Postcards book, I am thrilled to announce the launch of another book. This time, I am focusing on this small country I call home now – Belgium. In Beautiful Belgium you will find a combination of my travel photography of vivid, beautiful locations in Belgium, and my Forgotten Postcard digital art collages, some of which have never been in print before. I am offering this book, through Blurb (who’s quality of printing is second to none), in three different formats:

• Softcover, available for €34.95 – Very portable and easy to pack for those of you who are on the go. Also makes a great gift!
• Hardcover, Dustjacket, available for €43,95 – A durable beautiful presentation that makes a great keepsake.
• Hardcover Imagewrap, available for €49,95 – This is the top of the line, library binding for a smooth, sophisticated look – Perfect for your coffee table!

These books are available through my Blurb bookstore. The prices above do not include shipping, which varies by location.

Special Offer for Belgium

For those of you located in Belgium, I have a special offer for a limited time. I have some softcover books available for €35.00 (a deal AND no shipping costs), if you pick them up directly from me. You can stop by my studio or I can meet you in Brussels. I will also sign your copy of the book to whomever you wish. Just email me for details.

The Cloth Hall (or Lakenhal in Dutch) in Ypres Belgium was a warehouse for the prosperous cloth industry during the Middle Ages. These days, it is the home of the In Flanders Fields WWI Museum.

I decided to create a Forgotten Postcard of this building because many of the real postcards of Ypres past reflect the devastation of WWI. I wanted to focus on the beauty of the architecture and the new-found vibrance and resilience of this lovely Flemish city. I hope you like it.

Iâ€d love to hear your feedback in the comments below. Visit the Forgotten Postcards Galleries to view and purchase prints. To learn more about the series, visit the Forgotten Postcards Overview, or check out the price list for details on sizes and availability.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted any new work, but I’ve been on the road all summer photographing new locations. Now I’m busy preparing for the next Accessible Art Fair in Brussels this fall and along with launching some brand new work, I’ve been creating some new Forgotten Postcards.

This digital art collage is the library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven) or KU Leuven. The library takes pride of place at the head of the Oude Markt (Old Market Square) and is a stunning piece of architecture.

Iâ€d love to hear your feedback in the comments below. Visit the Forgotten Postcards Galleries to view and purchase prints. To learn more about the series, visit the Forgotten Postcards Overview, or check out the price list for details on sizes and availability.

Traditional houseboats called kettuvallams are a big tourist attraction on the Kerala backwaters on the Malabar Coast of India. This scene had the timeless quality I look for when I create my Forgotten Postcards.

Iâ€d love to hear your feedback in the comments below. Visit the Forgotten Postcards Galleries to view and purchase prints. To learn more about the series, visit the Forgotten Postcards Overview, or check out the price list for details on sizes and availability.

Bouchout Castle, Kasteel van Bouchout in Dutch, is located in the town of Meise, near Brussels, and is now at the centre of the National Botanical Garden of Belgium. Although the castle has been heavily restored, I felt the classic architecture lends itself well to the Forgotten Postcards treatment.

I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below. Visit the Forgotten Postcards Galleries to view and purchase prints. To learn more about the series, visit the Forgotten Postcards Overview, or check out the price list for details on sizes and availability.

This Forgotten Postcard from our autumn trip to Vouliagmeni, Greece was actually completed as a client commission. The client was planning a wedding, in the area, and found my original image through a google search. She liked the Forgotten Postcard effect and asked if it would be possible to do something similar with the original Vouliagmeni photo.

The client asked for something soft and light and ‘wedding-y.’ I sent her three final options that also included the wedding couple’s names and the date of their big day. This was my favourite of the three.

You can order existing Forgotten Postcards or request a commission using your own favourite travel photo.

One my most frequently asked questions each spring is ‘when is the best time to visit the Keukenhof Gardens?†My answer – that depends…

Each autumn, 7 million flower bulbs are planted at the Keukenhof Gardens. The gardens are carefully planned so bulbs blooming early to late in the season.  This means there is no time when all the flowers are in bloom at once.  Whenever you visit, throughout the season, there will be plenty of tulips to enjoy.

I have been visiting Keukenhof Gardens for the past 7 years and even though I target similar dates, in the middle of the season, some years have seen more flowers in bloom than others.

The most important and unpredictable factor is Mother Nature herself. The timing of the tulips will vary depending on how cold or warm the winter has been.  Keep an eye on the weather and use your best judgement. If itâ€s still cold in mid March, delay your visit by a week or two. If it is unseasonably warm, visit the gardens earlier.

This climate unpredictability is overcome in the huge greenhouse complexes, where you can enjoy thousands of tulips throughout the season.

Another important factor is what you hope to see at the Keukenhof.

• If you are hoping to photograph outdoor beds full of multi-coloured tulips, it is best to aim for the middle of the season in mid to late April.
• If you want to enjoy the best of the new tulip varieties inside the greenhouses, early to mid-April is better.
• If other varieties of flowers are your main concern, you can check the schedule of events to see what flowers are featured each week.

Whenever you visit during the season, it is best to avoid weekends and holidays if at all possible.  44 million people have visited Keukenhof Gardens over the past 60 years, and some days it can feel as though all of them are there when you are.

If your aim is to photograph landscapes of Keukenhof devoid of people, you need to arrive as soon as the gates open and work quickly. The area near the pond is one of the first to get busy.

Later in the day, you can still escape the main crowds by heading to some of the more out of the way paths. The woodland gardens are a nice place to get some shade and escape the onslaught of tour-bus visitors.

The Greenhouses also get extremely crowded as the day goes on, particularly the orchid house as it is narrow to begin with. If you hope to do some macro photography, it is best to target the greenhouses early.

Whenever you go, remember the Keukenhof is 32 hectares, so you probably wonâ€t be able to see everything. Every year is different and there is always something new to see and photograph.

Pace yourself and take lots of breaks and do as I do, breathe deep, and carry a big tripod

Practical Information:

This year the gardens are open from 24 March to 20 May 2011

Keukenhof (office)
Stationsweg 166a
2161 AM LISSE
The Netherlands
Telephone: +31 (0) 252 465 555
http://www.keukenhof.nl/en/

For more practical advice on photographing gardens, see my article Garden Photography Tips for Avoiding Crowds.

For more photography visit my gallery of Keukenhof Gardens photos.

The Cathedral of Our Lady, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal in Dutch, is a striking landmark in Antwerp’s city centre. This Roman Catholic Gothic cathedral is on the UNESCO World Heritage sites list for Belgium.

I hope my Forgotten Postcard treatment serves it well. If you would like to learn more about the Forgotten Postcards please see the overview. If you are interested in purchasing this or any of the other Forgotten Postcards visit the Forgotten Postcards Gallery.

Back in the day, being a stock photographer meant sending thousands of slides to image agencies who would then sell your work on to buyers, hopefully resulting in big payouts. Digital cameras and microstock agencies revolutionised the stock industry, flooding the market with low cost images. The debate over microstock rages on, years later, but stock photographers across the board have had to rethink how they market their photos.

These days, a stock photographerâ€s best friend is SEO (search engine optimisation) and a website that gets lots of love from Google. With more and more image buyers searching the web for the photos they need, excellent keyword ranking is vital.

For the past year or so, Iâ€ve been moving away from stock agencies, as I watch the photographerâ€s cut of image sales revenue decrease more and more. I decided instead to focus on direct sales of stock image downloads and fine art prints from my website.

Enter PhotoShelter – an online image management and e-commerce tool for professional photographers.

Iâ€ve been aware of PhotoShelter for several years. They have released a few excellent free reports on SEO and Social Media for photographers and Iâ€ve been following their blog for a while.  Over the Christmas holidays, PhotoShelter offered a free 30 day trial of their service and I decided to give it a try.

PhotoShelter claims to focus on SEO and includes many tools to maximize your search engine mojo. In 30 days I can honestly say, it works. Despite competing in two very competitive segments of the stock photo industry – travel and garden stock photography, Iâ€ve seen my website bumped to the top of the heap for the keywords Iâ€ve chosen to optimize. Iâ€ve shot to page 3 of Google for my travel stock images and page 1 for my garden stock photos. That alone is worth its weight in gold.

But PhotoShelter also integrates well with my social media campaigns. I can automatically post my new galleries to my Facebook Fan page and create embeddable slide shows I can use to promote my work on other websites with a couple of clicks.

PhotoShelterâ€s keywording tools are great too. This turns my least favourite, but most important, stock photography task into something relatively painless and easy.

Within my PhotoShelter archive, I can assign one image to any number of galleries I wish, with one click. I can group those galleries into collections and create private galleries for clients.

A sample of my PhotoShelter Archive

I can also use as many or as few of PhotoShelterâ€s endless options as I like. Photographers can build an entire photography website straight from PhotoShelter or integrate it into a pre-existing website, as I have. In fact, you may not even have noticed that the new Photo Galleries section of ACMPhotography.com is driven entirely by PhotoShelter.

PhotoShelter also takes care of e e-commerce so I can now offer direct sales of downloads and prints directly through ACMPhotography.com, which means no more steep commissions to stock photo agencies.

If I sound a bit like an advertisement for PhotoShelter, I assure you they arenâ€t paying me to write this glowing review (although if they wanted to I wouldnâ€t be opposed!) Iâ€m simply impressed by the results Iâ€ve seen in my own SEO rankings in just 30 days. Itâ€s, of course, too early to tell if these increased rankings will turn into sales, but Iâ€m optimistic.

If you are a photographer who: is sick of the high commissions of stock photo agencies, wants to offer e-commerce through your own website, is in the market for a new website, or just wants to strengthen the SEO rankings of your current one, I strongly urge you to check out PhotoShelter and give them 30 days to win you over.