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Phillip Bekker is a commercial photographer whose photography offers a distinctive color-saturated, graphic and often abstract style. Perhaps his most widely recognized for his Polaroid work, some of which is in The Polaroid Collection and included in the global exhibition ‘Polaroid 50; Art and Technology’ which premiered at Photokina in Germany. To see more of Philip’s work, visit his liveBooks8 website: www.bekker.com.

I studied commercial photography at a four-year program in South Africa and studied in London in between this time period. Once I moved to the United States, I completed an MFA program in Visual Arts.

Our class is South Africa was the first group of commercial photo students to graduate in South Africa and probably in the whole of Africa. We were the threat to established photographers and you could not get assisting jobs once you graduated. There were no equipment rental houses at all, anywhere. You literally has to invest in a 4×5 Sinar (no other large format brand available – thankfully) and a Rollei or a Hasselblad (Mimaya’s came later) and some basic lighting. I started off with Bowens monolights and quickly progressed to Broncolor. I has assisted in Longo, which made a huge difference. With luck, someone from college you knew had become and art director and then it became word of mouth to build up clients.

I’ve always been involved in commercial photography, commercial photography education and fine art through gallery representation. One feeds off the other – a fine art exhibition led to a commission by Pierre Cardin after he visited my exhibition and other fine art has led to further commercial assignments since then.

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

PB: Simplicity, design, color (with B&W providing some relief here and there)

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

PB: I’ll replace individual images as needed. I’ll rearrange for flow, interest, and impact on a regular basis. I think its important to keep current and preferably ahead of current, if possible. Keep an eye on Europe.

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

PB: I wanted to use something that has the simplicity, design and color that is evident in a lot of my work and would work well as a lead and introduction into the first and subsequent portfolios.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

PB: The size choice for the images.

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

PB: Plan the flow carefully, don’t be tempted to show too much and let it show your personal signature. Stand out. Get other opinions.

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

The liveBooks team has been working vigorously this year to migrate many of its clients from the Flash-based Legacy platform to the HTML5-based liveBooks8 platform. The HTML5 platform offers responsive templates that you are readily able to edit on your desktop, tablet or mobile devices! With it a ton of new features are also available – including advanced SEO tools and options for customizations, such as varied portfolio and gallery layouts, a library of hundreds of font choices, drag and drop design, in-line editing tools and much more!

In addition to the added features that the HTML5 platform offers, there is one big reason why you should migrate from your Flash website as soon as possible. All major browsers have already set into motion the blocking of flash sites!

Safari:
In June, Apple announced that the version of Safari that comes on macOS Sierra will block Flash by default across all websites. This means that if your website runs on Flash, your visitors will be greeted by the following message:

Apple has taken a very big stand against Flash since 2007. This is due in part to Flash websites having slow loading times, being a drain on laptop batteries, and continually having security issues. The measures that Apple has taken will continue to detract visitors from visiting your Flash website.
(Sources: PetaPixel, The Verge)

Chrome:
Google announced in May that Chrome would start to block Flash websites with the launch of Chrome 53 in September. More importantly – in December 2016, Chrome 55 will make HTML5 the default experience. Those websites that only run on Flash will need to be enabled by the user to display properly.
(Source: Chrome Blog)

Firefox:
Mozilla Firefox will retire Adobe Flash as soon as 2017. With the release of Firefox 53, Flash plug-ins will require the user to actively click-to-play. Though Mozilla hasn’t directly stated that Flash will be completely retired after the click-to-play change, the move is apparent.
(Source: ARS Technica)

Though Adobe Flash helped make the Web a rich and dynamic experience, a new generation of technology has pushed for a big change in website platforms. The liveBooks8 platform is the optimal choice for our Flash users to transition to.

To learn more about liveBooks8 and its main features, please visit this link.

To see our migration options and schedule your migration, please visit this link.

Meet Ovidiu! He is an outstanding Development Manager in our IT Department in Brasov, Romania.  Ovidiu has been with the company for 13 wonderful years and loves the people and culture of liveBooks. Because Brasov is an amazing place for outdoor activities, he does a lot of cycling and skiing in his free time!

Quick Facts:
Hometown: Brasov, Romania
Favorite liveBooks8 Feature: Varied portfolio views
Favorite TV Shows: Seinfeld, Walking Dead and Southpark
Pets: Pufi (an 18-year-old Norwegian forest cat!)

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to transfer computer files between clients and servers on a computer network. Though liveBooks is not currently offering an internal storage solution, we do recommend various options and platforms for cloud storage and file sharing. Some external options will allow to you to attach storage to your domain and link it via FTP.

Third-party storage and sharing services recommended by liveBooks:

• Dropbox
• WeTransfer
• Hightail

Note: If you are looking to host private proofing galleries for your clients, doing so with ShootProof or RedCart could be an option for you. 

Attaching storage to your domain and linking via FTP:

If you prefer to setup your own solution with your registrar or another company that sells cloud storage, the process is as follows:

1. Purchase a storage solution from a provider you have chosen (i.e. goDaddy cloud storage)
2. Link this storage area to their domain via a cname like ‘proofs.domain.com’. Each provider will have specific ways to do this with your registrar.
3. Once setup, you can use an FTP client like FileZilla to access this storage area.
4. If you want to, you should be able to link Adobe Lightroom and a public folder on this FTP storage area. This could be used to upload and share HTML web galleries.

Note: The registrar can be different than the storage/FTP company and it can be different than the website hosting company. There are no technical issues with this. If you choose a provider that says otherwise, this is due to their business policy, not the fact that it cannot be done.