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My earliest long-term photography project was a 3 year documentary photoessay on Cambodian refugees and street gangs in the U.S., something I worked on while doing my masters in Photography at Columbia College in Chicago. As an undergraduate student, I’d studied Southeast Asian studies and Thai language to it was only natural to start my professional career based in Bangkok, Thailand covering Southeast Asia. Clients included The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, and several European and Asian-based publications. I worked on assignment as well as my own documentary projects throughout the region. I continued this kind of work later based in Tokyo and then Paris, France.

Nowadays I do less editorial work and more corporate and commercial work and have been living and working out of Seattle for the better part of a decade although I continue to travel and work in Asia. To see more of Stuart’s work, visit his liveBooks8 website: www.isett.com.

Q: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

SI: Big and bold. As a lot of my older work was shot on slide film or b/w negative, I worked hard making sure the colors and quality of those images matches more recent digital work. Too many photojournalists don’t do that with older slide work and I think it’s important that images on my website, whether editorial or commercial, look their best.

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

SI: Every few weeks I’ll add photos, then pull older ones. My portfolio is always a work in progress, always evolving. Like most photographers, I’m on my own worst editor. I’ll tweak the design a few times a year.

Q: How do you choose the photos that you display on your homepage?

SI: My roots are as a photojournalist so even though most of my work these days is corporate and commercial, I try to balance what I do today with my roots as a documentarian and show that on the homepage.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

SI: Well I sues the old system for close to a decade so plenty to like about liveBooks8, but the ability to edit, modify, and add images is key for me.

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

SI: Make sure your images are technically consistent across the website. This is more true for photojournalists who need to learn the design skills for some of their commercial brethren and not simply throw images up. Design is important, even if you are a documentary photographer.

Have a website you’d like us to feature? Email us at social@livebooks.com.