livebooks blog

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.

Lisa and Mark Staff are a husband and wife team that have dedicated their career to photographing various mediums such as weddings, fashion, and commercial photography. To see more of their work, visit their liveBooks8 website: www.markstaffphotography.com.

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

L&MS: We are a husband and wife team…I know…not very original…that thrive on documenting people and their lifestyles whether for them personally or through advertising campaigns. We have been doing this for twenty years full-time, even though most of our friends and family still wonder when we are going to get a real job. This is as real as it gets. Doing what you love. Having a zest for life and sharing that and working with like-minded people.

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

L&MS: Clean, Elegant, Easy.

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

L&MS: Since it is easy to do – at any time but usually every couple of months.

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

L&MS: If a photograph speaks to me and evokes and emotional response in me besides just being “pretty” it will make it to our site.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

L&MS: Fave feature…that it looks great on all platforms and there is an intuitive ease to working with it. You don’t need to be a technical genius or hire a team to do your site and if you do have a question, the customer service is tip top with answers that you can easily find with a click or have a representative respond in a timely manner, which is such a bonus.

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

L&MS: The design of your site is your “first impression” and you can’t disregard or minimize the importance of this. In our business as photographers it has to represent our brand and our vision in all ways. This is our “portfolio” online and the way we can get 99% of our business so it needs to be tip top. You need to choose the company that can help you achieve this. liveBooks make all of this happen easily for us. Anything that we had envisioned, they had a way to deliver and improve on it.

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

I am a still photographer and director based in St. Louis and New York City. My aesthetic is driven by authentic, textural, emotive moments, whether I am shooting stills and or motion assets. My style and feel of the two assets are consistent, which is paramount for most brands.

Like most people, I loved taking photos growing up and got my first break by being in the right place at the right time when the Berlin Wall came down, which led to a freelance gig at a newspaper, a wire service, etc. The next big break was landing the highly coveted internship at Sports Illustrated. That brought me to NYC and killed the drive of wanting to shoot sports. From there, I assisted for 2 years and the went out on my own and curated a clientele base and honed in on my personal aesthetic, which is always evolving.

I specialize in shooting authenticity-driven imagery for regional to global brands and agencies, working on projects such as: image brand libraries, advertising campaigns, editorial, digital assets for web, print, outdoor, broadcast, etc.

Partial client list includes Mississippi Tourism, Marley Coffee, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, AMD, Deutsche Bank, Intel, Nike, AMEX, American Airlines, GE, Disney World, Time Warner, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, J. Walter Thomas, People Magazine, AG Edwards, CDW, Y & R, Fleishman-Hillard, McCann-Erickson, FutureBrand, etc.

And I have an image on the USPS stamp…to be introduces and issued on March 31st, 2017.

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

LB: Intuitive. Clean. Informative.

Time is precious for any client and we didn’t want people to think about how the site works, it needed to be intuitive. The goal is to be sensitive to people’s time and let them view the images efficiently. Gone are the days, with us at least, for sites with all the bells & whistles, sound, moving targets to click on, etc. Art buyers/creatives have enough going on in their lives, it’s our task to help them and we believe that ease and simplicity is key.

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

LB: Pretty often, at least once a month if not more. It has to be updated and be fresh. It’s alive, it’s a living breathing organism and we have to keep feeding it!

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

LB: I yield to my agent and then we discuss. There are images that tend to rise to the top of the heap.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

LB: The backend workflow is a lot deeper than before. The SEO is key, the rotating home page, it’s faster all around. That’s a few of the faves, hard to pick just one…which is good!

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

LB: For me, the backend workflow is key. If I’m going to update content as often as I do, it has to be a good user experience, not something that I dread. I’ve had those dreaded websites and blogs in the past, think WordPress, sigh.

Nicole Sanchez is a visual artist, photographer, and videographer. Her publications, documentaries, and solo exhibits have received countless awards. To see more of her work, visit her liveBooks8 website: www.nicolesanchez.com.

I am a Dominican-German photographer. I started studying Photography in Germany at a very young age. After I finished my education, I moved to the Dominican Republish where I worked on commercial photography. Eventually, I started making personal projects which resulted in 8 books, 7 solo exhibitions, documentaries, and countless pieces; some of which have been recognized by experts in the field, the media and museums like the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo. My work is part of a personal evolution. It changes as I change. Every day I feel more identified with social issues, human reality, drama, and beauty.

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

NS: Personal, clean, modern.

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

NS: It varies a lot. I can upload a series of images at once and/or take down a whole portfolio. Whenever I feel I have an image I want to share, I do it.

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

NS: I try to vary my homepage often; sometimes it is the newest image I have created, sometimes it is just a certain feeling or mood that I have and want to share.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

NS: My favorite new feature of liveBooks8 is being able to display all the images of each portfolio in one page.

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

NS: Choose the images that best represent your work; it is better to show the right pieces rather than just publishing a lot of them.

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