livebooks blog

Photographer Rick Brazil shoots for architects, designers, developers, magazines, and retail companies throughout the United States and Mexico – and his website design reflects all of the clean, beautiful imagery in an easy-to-navigate way. Since he recently redesigned his website with the new liveBooks8 platform, we thought it would be perfect to feature this week!

Check out what he had to say about his website and head over to www.rickbrazil.com to see more!

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

RB: Visual, Clean, Quality.

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

RB: I went through a list of recent projects and picked the most visual of those images. I tried to stay with a theme of visually appealing architecture and imagery.

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

RB: At least 2-3 times a year, depending on my travel schedule and quality of projects.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

RB: I love the new liveBooks8 format. It takes a little time to fully understand the capabilities of the new website editor, but it is fully worth the effort!

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

RB: Take the time to understand the process of building a quality website with liveBooks8, pick only your best photographs that you can create a unique, fully customized website that is beautiful and shows off your work in the best possible format!

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

Building your client base as a photographer is a job that continues whether you’re just starting out or have been in the business for 30 years. You should constantly be seeking out new projects, work, and clients to fill out your portfolios give you a well-rounded client base. We thought it would be a good idea to offer some tips on the best ways to build your client base – that you can use as a new photographer or as a seasoned pro.

Utilize Social Media

Social media (when used correctly) will be your best friend when building up a client base. Figure out where your target client base spends their time and then get on those platforms. Are you a wedding or family portrait photographer? Get on Facebook and Instagram. Are you a lifestyle or commercial photographer? Make sure you blog about relevant topics to show your expertise and professionalism and then post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc to drive people back to your blog.

Don’t be afraid to follow or “like” plenty of other photographers in your industry so that you can get ideas, see their work, engage with their projects, and ultimately network and prove yourself a reputable person for them to refer clients to.

Also – make sure to always tag your clients in the things you post on social media. It keeps engagement high and allows their network to also see your work and become familiar with your name and business.

Set Your Pricing – But Run Specials or Promotions

Yo-yo pricing is never a good idea, especially if you want to build credibility in the industry. Know your worth as a photographer, set your pricing, and stick to it. If you’re a new photographer and want to book more clients, run specials or promotions to get people in the door – but make sure once you have a solid client base to make your pricing consistent with what your time and talent is worth. New clients will be attracted to your confidence in yourself and your work – and that will benefit you greatly in the long run.

Referral Program

Having some sort of referral program in place is a wonderful way to not only allow your clients to help market for you, but to reward them for doing so. Depending on how much you want to increase your client base, you can decide the type of program you want to offer. If you’re just starting out and really want to gain new clients, being more aggressive in the type of “rewards” you offer (such as a free session, 50% price discount) might be appropriate. If you’re a seasoned pro and are just looking to expand your current base a little bit, you can be more choosy in the type of program that you offer (maybe an electronic Starbucks gift card).

Much like setting your pricing and sticking to it – always make sure to crunch the numbers before you begin any sort of referral program so that you can make sure you won’t be losing money.

Network With Local Businesses

Networking with local businesses is a fantastic way to get your name out there in the community, and depending on the type of photography that you do can be extremely helpful in finding new clients.  Bartering your services can be mutually beneficial because it allows you to build your portfolio, gives local businesses an opportunity to have professional-quality photos for marketing purposes, and will serve as a good way for them to refer you to clients or even let you advertise your services in their place of business.

Make sure you choose businesses that are relevant to the type of photography you do or would like to do. If you’re a wedding photographer, consider networking with a local hair salon or makeup studio that typically gets a lot of bridal clients. If you’re a lifestyle or sports photographer try making connections at your local sporting goods or running shop.

Focus on Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) should always, always, ALWAYS be a focus no matter where you’re at in your photography career. However, when you’re trying to build or expand your client base, putting more time, effort, and resources into SEO will be well worth it. Who is your target client base? Make sure that your website, blog, and any other content on the web mentions those keywords in an appropriate manner.

Caption all of your photos with descriptions and keywords, and make sure your website is optimized for search engines to crawl. The new liveBooks8 platform offers SEO Everything tools to ensure that your website performs the best that it can on search engines and walks you through where and how to input all of the important aspects of SEO.

Do you have any other tips we should know about?

Things are extremely busy these days here at liveBooks. The other week we announced the launch of our new liveBooks8 HTML5 platform and we are hard at work migrating our clients over. Last week, we completely re-branded and re-launched liveBooks.com – and we hope you’ve taken a look and love what you see!

The new homepage features some amazing video content from our fantastic clients, as well as a cleaner, easy-to-navigate menu.

You also now have the opportunity to see all the new features of liveBooks8 and get a sneak peek of how the website editor functions.

Plus, you can preview all the new templates that are available with the platform via the website templates page so you get a feel for some of the beautiful new designs.

Let us know in the comments what you think of our new website – and feel free to email us at social@livebooks.com!

In today’s world we are rarely ever found without our cell phones within arm’s reach. It seems our devices have become an extension of ourselves in every possible way – relying on them for even the most basic of functions. While many things we do on our phones can be frivolous and unnecessary, there are actually a lot of ways in which they enhance and make our lives easier. We’ve compiled a list of must-have apps specifically for photographers – to make your lives easier and your businesses run smoother.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE)

The Photographer’s Ephemeris is incredibly valuable for natural light shooters and landscape photographers. The app uses your current location ( or prospective shooting spot) to tell you the heading and angle of the moon, the hours of twilight, the size of shadows, upcoming celestial events, golden hour times, and more. This app also has a “visual search” feature which will tell you the exact date and time the sun and moon will be in a specific location in the sky for a given shooting spot.

$8.99 – iOS

$4.99 – Google Play

Easy Release

If you’re a street photographer or work with a lot of models, Easy Release is the perfect on-the-go app for you. With Easy Release, you can set up a custom release form (or multiple ones for different situations, depending on the type of work you do) that can be signed using a finger. This will instantly generate a PDF document that you can email to everyone that require a copy of the release. Bonus: major image houses like Getty and iStockPhoto approve of its use. However, we always encourage you to consult a lawyer on any legal matter to make sure your releases and contracts are legally binding.

$9.99 – iOS

$9.99 – Google Play

Instagram

We know, we know. Instagram isn’t necessarily an app just for photographers. However, we think it’s important and beneficial enough for your photography business that we had to include it here. Instagram is a way to showcase your amazing photography with the world – literally. Utilizing hashtags correctly can result in thousands of new followers and tons of engagement with your work – which can all lead to increased business and name recognition. Plus, by following other photographers or hashtags that are interesting or relevant to your business, you could learn new things, become inspired to try a new type of shot, and even network with people around the world. We could go on and on about the importance of this app, especially for newer photographers looking to establish themselves, but we urge you to check it out for yourself. Already have an Instagram account? Follow ours – @liveBookswebsites – so we can follow you back and #regram your best pics!

Free – iOS

Free – Google Play

iWatermark

With the increase in photo sharing on social media, there is a higher risk that someone might be able to steal your work. However, we believe that the benefits of sharing on social media gar outweigh the potential risks, and with apps like iWatermark you can further protect yourself. This app gives you the ability to add your logo to images before you post them. You can either water with text or imagery (like your logo) and save the photo back to your camera roll or share it directly to social media from the app.

$1.99 – iOS

$1.99 – Google Play

Photographer’s Tools

Photographer’s Tools provides easy access to some of photography’s most commonly used properties. This app includes a depth of field calculator, sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times, twilight, blue, and holden hour windows, plus an ND filter calculator for determining how much to compensate an exposure. We also really love the clean, uncluttered format that the app presents everything so that you can quickly access what you need and get back to what you really want to be doing: shooting.

Free – iOS

Free – Google Play

Wireless Mobile Utility

This app creates a two-way wireless connection between Nikon cameras and iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. This means that pictures taken with the camera can be downloaded to any iOS device, and the camera can be controlled remotely, using the iOS device. Plus, the photo sharing feature makes it super easy to upload pictures to social media sites and attach them to email messages.

Free – iOS

DropBox

We think any cloud storage app is always a great idea (long gone are the days of crashed hard drives and losing all of your work!) DropBox is our favorite because it lets you access all of your photos, documents, and videos from anywhere and share them easily. Plus, you can access any file you save to DropBox on any of your devices, computer, phone, tablet, etc.

Free – iOS

Free- Google Play

What are some of your favorite photography apps that you just can’t live without? Let us know in the comments below or feel free to email us at social@livebooks.com.