MTA

2 years ago this very month, Managing Director Martin Abraham launched MTA Ltd a new photographic album business, in Buckinghamshire.

The decision was simply but the road was a tough one. After the collapse of such a great company Spicer Hallfield Martin was determined to keep the tradition alive but create something unique, traditional and innovative for the photographic industry. As a result MTA was born.

Martin Abraham says “Spicer Hallfield was a legacy company and its closure was a very sad day indeed for all staff and customers. I was proud to work for Spicer Hallfield for over 23 years and wanted to maintain and increase my passion for the album making industry, so after numerous negotiations I launched MTA”.

With years of knowledge in the industry, Martin used his experience to launch a young, fresh and modern company backed with a wealth of experience behind it. Within months of officially opening MTA had already secured UK distribution rights for the popular repositionable self-adhesive products (formerly part of the Spicer Hallfield Madison & Manhattan ranges). The Haddenham-based factory has already developed exciting new ranges that will appeal to photographers and their clients alike.

Being Passionate about Products, Martin continued “We only source high quality materials that are all hand finished by our elite professional team. Our self-adhesive product line gives our customers flexibility to make and re-make albums they want to enjoy. We intend to extend this range in the coming months with new sizes and compelling new covers.

We will also offer a variety of post bound albums in a range of quality covers – a key advantage for our customers will be the opportunity to trial new cover materials, quarter-bound covers and personalization options.”

The first year seem to disappear so fast. MTA suddenly wrapped themselves  in the ongoing campaign to launch new products, be seen at events and announce the new MTA Store designed for the ever popular Ease-eee album range, giving you the opportunity of purchasing this amazing and fully repositionable range online.

Martin has a passion and commitment to providing quality and full support to photographers everywhere, his grassroots approach means people can easily interact with him and the team; they are very open to ideas and feedback. It’s the basis of their success and Martin believes in meeting as many people as he can to find out what the “real” people are after and not what the industry says they want.  

The shows were endless in 2010 and we wanted to be sure we covered as many places as possible including all the standard industry events from SWPP and Focus, to the more intimate events like Calumet to name but a few. The end of 2010 saw MTA become a sponsor and exhibit at the UK’s official Gay Wedding Show, supporting Civil Partnerships and same sex couples.

On the lead up to August of last year, MTA wanted to launch a catalogue but again wanted something that would be modern, fresh, and easy to use and incorporated the latest technology. August 2010 MTA the brochure was launched, in print and on line – giving photographers the opportunity of being able to view the brochure anywhere. Taking the catalogue concept and turning it into a stylish and handy little brochure for anyone to enjoy.

It was genuinely one of the craziest times in our lives but we made it to our 1st Birthday and having looked back for a moment to reflect, boy were we happy in what was achieved in such a short space of time.

What next, well the challenge was on and for year 2 we had to step up the range and look to innovative ideas to break the mould in the industry and strive to be even better than the first year. 

2011 started off with a bang with our second appearance at Focus on Imaging with a stand that even shocked us. We were so delighted in the creation and time spent on making sure we displayed everything the photographer needed backed with the full team to make sure we helped everyone possible.

To date MTA are proud to say that not only do we have a great range available from traditional to modern but we kept adding more products to the family like the chic range, Contempo to the saucy Boudoir range. Completo was born from the ideas of many photographers feedback. The Tudor Range bought back tradition with high quality leather and a distinctive look that simply oozes quality.

The latest addition to the family is the brand new Rio Range, these on trend bookbound albums are easy to load with either full page images (giving a storybook effect) or using the matt black overlays provided with the album (for a more traditional looking album).

But the story doesn’t stop there. It was time to realize the power of the internet and the digital revolution. As a result 2 new products were launched to further help the photographer in the build process.

It’s all gone Digital:-

2010 saw MOASIC launch, offering the latest designer software which enables you to download your prints on to our software and create stunning designs easily. Say goodbye to the single photograph on a page, you can now drag and drop multi images onto one page.

2011 MTA launches Floricolor UK which created one of the biggest reactions in the market place since the introduction of the traditional and ever popular Madrid Range. What makes Floricolor different, well in brief, Floricolor UK offers simple and exceptional software in helping you build high quality digital albums with innovative covers that others can only attempt to copy.

Martin comments “From day one of launching MTA it was always my wish to have a range of digital album products that would be amongst the finest in the world. I knew it would be a major challenge to achieve this especially for a new company such as ours that was trying to establish itself in the world of photography.

It was a must that we didn't just introduce any old digital product because the competition is tremendous in the UK so it needed to be one which delighted the customer. With this in mind I knew it was going to be a long process but I was determined to only launch quality.

I was looking at all the latest machinery needed to produce digital products when lady luck played a very big part in my discovery of Floricolor and I thank her for that. We were exhibiting at a show in London and was attracting a good number of visitors to our stand which caught the eye of the owner of Floricolor.

He made contact with me and asked why we did not have any digital product on our stand. I told him that I was in the process of finding the right solution but would not introduce any products until I had the very best manufacturing methods. With this he asked me to view his products which he was also exhibiting at the show. I did this and was stunned at what I saw, a range of the very finest digital products I had ever seen. I told him that one day this is the kind of quality product I want to manufacture at MTA and this is when he said to me why make them when we can make them for you? I had never considered the idea of someone else making the digital product for MTA but after seeing the Floricolor range It needed to investigated more which I followed up over the coming months,

I believe that the Floricolor products offer the photographer some of the finest available in the world. This is why I took the decision to form a partnership with Floricolor and introduce them in the UK. It was always my ambition to have digital products in our range but to produce them to the same quality of Floricolor would have taken many years and major investment. Combine the talents of both MTA and Floricolor in the UK and the photographer will be delighted with the results.

Floricolor have been producing products for many years in Portugal and are experts in their field. MTA is very passionate about products and determined to offer the photographer something different with our approach so the combination of both is a winning formula which will benefit the customer.

I know that if you choose our Floricolor products you won't be disappointed”.

So by now you get the picture (excuse the pun) MTA have a young fresh desire to make change, realize the market and adapt accordingly. They are not afraid to try new ideas and concepts, always open to feedback and above all be there for you, the photographer. It may sound cheesy but sometimes cheesy is cool to.

Visit the MTA website