livebooks blog

Casey Curry is a celebrity, portrait, and fashion/beauty photographer based in Los Angeles, California. Casey has worked with A-list celebrities such as Michael Caine, Kate Winslet, Billy Bob Thornton, and many others. To see more of work, visit his liveBooks8 website: www.caseycurry.com.

I’ve been studying light and taking pictures since I was the was a child although my start in the industry began with an assisting job for David LaChapelle. His creative approach fused with the talented photo crew he surrounds himself with set the bar for the level of production I wanted for my sets. From then, it’s been a slow burn of testing, developing my craft, and shooting commissioned work. As my aesthetic matures, so does my need to push the limits of what I can deliver for my clients – this can only be found through constant testing. I’ll often watch a film or look at a classic painting and think, “Oh that look would be great for this band/upcoming project.” It’s a continual path of discovery. I never stop learning.

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

CC: Clean, minimalistic, modern.

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

CC: Since I started constructing the layout and curating work, it’s been a daily effort. From here on out, I plan on updating my site on a bi-monthly basis.

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

CC: The homepage is intended to give viewers a taste of each section of the website. Additionally, each image is meant to showcase the diverse approaches I’m capable of.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

CC: It’s been years since I use the old liveBooks, so I can’t attest to how much it differs. I can, however, say that it is the best self-managed website I’ve user, and I’ve used quite a few of them. The functionality is superior. It is not only user-friendly, but also technically superior with the built-in SEO and design customization capabilities.

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

CC: Although it’s important to stay true to yourself, get feedback from peers in your field – or better yet, from those you draw influence and aspiration from. I always try to surround myself with people who I feel are better than me, and I took the same approach when building my site. Also, you need to strictly limit the content you display (that’s where the help of others can really come in handy). It should only be the best of what you have to showcase and it needs to take your viewers on a cohesive journey. A good portfolio is one that doesn’t feel disjointed and doesn’t ever get boring.

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

Dorit Thies specializes in beauty, hair, fashion and celebrity photography and is known for creating powerful imagery ranging from international magazine covers to compelling photos captured in exotic destinations around the world. To see more of her work, visit her liveBooks8 website: www.doritthies.com

When I moved to the US from Europe, I had established myself as a professional hair and make-up artist, working in the commercial world. I was always intrigued with the art form of photography and I started shooting my personal fine art work for a few years when establishing my life in the US.

I am completely self-taught.

My work at the time was driven by my personal connections such as dancers, actors, musicians, and my inspiration came from photographers and painters like Georgia O’Keefe, Tina Modotti, Leonora Carrington, Irvin Penn, and Helmut Newton. I was all about developing my personal style.

Over a period of four years, I created a large body of fine art work, shooting only black and white film. I had success quickly and my work was shown in several galleries in Los Angeles, in Santa Fe, New Mexico and The Katonah Museum of Art, Upstate New York.

When I began to shoot commercially, I decided to specialize in health and fitness photography. My very first commercial client was Men’s Health Magazine in Germany. I was lucky and shot their covers for several years. In the last six years I started to specialize in Beauty/Fashion & Celebrity Photography. I am now balancing the art of shooting conceptual beauty and fashion layouts for magazines such as Marie Claire, Modeliste, L’Officiel with some of my favorite artists while focusing on commercial campaigns.

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

DT: Bold, Intriguing, Layered

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

DT: Every 2 weeks or whenever I have new work, which is usually a few times a month.

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

DT: I love colorful images, technically flawless, artistically strong, surprising, unexpected and I try to mix it up, showing my clients my versatility.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

DT: I can post unlimited images to the home page and link them to a particular portfolio, move them into a particular order within seconds. I love the fact that you can choose 3 different template layouts for each portfolio and view it in one click. It is super easy to understand.

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

DT: Keep it simple.

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

Michelle Coursey is a professional make-up artist based in New York City. Her work has appeared in national and international magazines, television shows, runways and the red carpet. She has a natural talent fro making women feel beautiful and a special gift for creating flawless, beautiful faces through make-up and airbrushing. She has worked alongside famous make-up artists such as Pat McGrath, Dick Page, Tom Pecheux, and Charlotte Tilbury at New York and Paris Fashion Weeks and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. To see more of Michelle’s work, visit her liveBooks8 website: www.michellecoursey.com.

I’m originally from Oregon and came to NYC to study acting but quickly switched my focus to makeup after graduating from college. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day and wanted to be doing something creative and then stumbled across a book about the business side of make-up and decided that is what I wanted to do. I did a ton of test shoots and got my portfolio together and eventually got some regular clients and an agency. I’ve been full-time freelance for about 12 years now. I work on a combination of commercial, editorial, fashion runway and red carpet projects.

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

MC: Clean, fast, striking!

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

MC: It really depends on how much new work I have coming in, but on average I’d say once a month.

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

MC: I choose the photos based on how much I love them and also which photos have gotten the best response in general. I like to choose a range of dramatic and natural looks so clients can see my range immediately.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

MC: Ease of updating and an easy backend. I love being able to see how design changes will look as I’m doing them.

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

MC: Keep it as simple and impactful as possible. Most clients won’t look at every photo so make sure your best work is front and center.

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

Brian DeMello is a lifestyle photographer that has dedicated his career to photographing various outlets. From photographing foods to beauty products, his work portfolio ranges far more than your typical photographer. To see more of his work, visit his liveBooks8 website: www.briandemello.com

Reminiscing on my childhood, photography was always something that grabbed my attention. Whether I was looking through my great grandparents exotic vacation photos, flipping through the pages of National Geographic, or pestering the photographer who was taking my little league baseball photos, I could be easily entertained for hours by the process and results of photography. Fast forwarding past my high school and college years, I found myself working for a small graphic design shop in Newport, R.I. It was here that I found myself working alongside some of the top sailing and marine photographers in the world. Taking inspiration from seeing their work on a daily basis, I began investing more and more time and money into developing my own portfolio. Over the years I’ve found that I enjoy different styles of photography for different reasons. Early on in my career I struggled with the complexities of lighting studio work. These days I’m infatuated with the subtleties and analytics of complex lighting. A lot of the imagery that I produce will never see the light of day because it’s only purpose is for my exploration of a style, subject, or technique. On the flip side of my commercial work and explorations, I’m constantly developing a body of fine art images that is very personal and introspective. The development and evolution of this work has become a priceless escape from the din of everyday life. I hope to one day incorporate the fine art images into a series of books, but time will tell.

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

BD: Efficient – it allows the viewer to choose the exact path they want to travel right from the landing page, but also introduces them to my other work at the same time. Both of those aspects were foundational in redesigning my website.
Simple – the website isn’t meant to waste the viewer’s time. It’s easy to navigate.
Precise – it gives a client/potential client a sense of clarity on what to expect when working together

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

BD: Keeping fresh and new images on my site is very important to how I promote my work. I try to keep on a schedule of populating my site with 5-10 new images at a time or in a ballpark of once every 2-3 months. One of the final stages of my editing workflow is to upload a web-optimized image to my liveBooks image gallery. This ensures that when I’m ready to include new image in my portfolio, it’s already waiting for me on the back-end of the site. With the new liveBooks8 platform being accessible from my iPhone and iPad, I’m able to plan and accomplish the evolution of my website from anywhere and importantly keep the website up to speed with my social media teasers. That being said, I try to regularly post teaser images on social media as often as I feel the work is strong enough. That regularity varies from twice a week to once every other week depending on what project I’m pursuing. For me, this keeps a steady flow of “fresh teaser images” venturing out into the world without spamming my contacts with “updated website promos”.

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

BD: Choosing images is difficult. Period.
Like it or not, photographers develop emotional connections to their imagery. For a photographer, the memories that surround the production of any given image permanently become part of that photograph. I’ve always had the confounding ability to remember incredible detail about my experiences as a photographer. The odor of garlic emanating from the kitchen at an on-location editorial shoot, the amazing humor of a fitness model as she holds a difficult pose, the stench of a burnt out water pump in a small studio. I remember the good and the bad alike. So when it come time to select images for a portfolio, art gallery, or the homepage of my website, the process is the same: I make 4×6 inch prints of every image in consideration then all the images are laid out in the studio floor. I can spend hours to days arranging and reworking until I have a selection and arrangement of images that work well together. I find that working with a jumble of images all but eliminates the personal memories that I have associated with each individual image. Sometimes I work the prints by myself, but for projects with a larger scope or impact, I’ll bring in other photographer friends to have second opinions.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

BD: That’s easy! The ability to work on my website from my iPad has proven to be quite a welcome aspect of the liveBooks8 platform. Having almost total control over the website design was a bit daunting at first because there was a fair amount to learn about the new interface. (Although I’m tech savvy, I have minimal web design knowledge). After spending a little bit of time “walking around” the design interface and menus, I had fairly quickly developed the foundation of what is now my functioning website. With that learning curve conquered, the ability to work on a mobile device quickly took hold. Over the course of a train ride from Boston to Washington DC and back to Boston, I has designed and organized an entirely new website on my iPad. A few extra minutes with Lily from Tech Support to clarify some SEO lingo and the finishing touches were done.

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

BD: Think, take your time, and think some more! Be analytical! You are going to be judged on how your website carries your brand just as much as how it carries your portfolio. Put yourself in your clients’ shoes (and just as importantly, your prospective clients’ shoes) when you are designing your site. Think about how they work and how you can make their job and life easier. Being a photographer is who you are, but making a client’s life better is what you do. Don’t rush that…Take your time!

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