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Laurie Proffitt is a food photographer, located in Chicago, IL. With a simple and elegant style, Laurie uses her expertise to work with high-profile magazines, advertising agencies, restaurants & cookbook producers. This is her story:

Food photography has come a long way since I came up the ranks as an assistant in Chicago. The food was styled laboriously perfect, and the props covered nearly every inch of the background. I enjoy how the look has entirely loosened up since then. Now, it is appetizing to slightly burn cheese, splash sauce, and show a half eaten plate of food. I also love that a distressed baking sheet makes fabulous background, and national ad campaigns will show their product in to-go containers.

It’s my job to find that visually appetizing element. At times, it is very editorial and messy; other clients manage the look of their brand with more restraint. As a food photographer, I need to approach advertising, editorial and packaging with different styles and different teams. Luckily for me, the pool of talented food stylists in Chicago runs deep. With that said, it’s my responsibility to pair the needs of my client with the best stylist and crew for each project. Collaboration between the art directors and my creative team is the key to success at my studio.

Aside from the food being styled well, lighting is instrumental to enhancing the appetite appeal of food. My new studio workspace incorporates an 11×14 ft. opaque glass window. The light from that window is just stunning. I often like to accent the daylight with small grid spots to boost color saturation. The grid spots also create specular-highlights that add to the visual impression that the food is moist, hot, and juicy. Mixed lighting, in conjunction with selective focus, are my favorite tools.

Another competitive piece of the puzzle is to create a welcoming and comfortable environment for the clients. The agency team and their clients are very busy people, and their work doesn’t stop just because they’re attending a photo shoot. Capture Pilot is an incredible tool to keep the clients in the loop while they work. So adjacent to the client table, I have a 50 inch TV, where the progress of our work is on view. Every one of my clients loves this!

See more of Laurie’s food photography on her new liveBooks8 site at: proffittphoto.com.

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

LP: Fresh, Crisp, Impactful

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

LP: I typically will update my homepage every few months. Ideally, I like to add finished ads or packaging examples to my “Print & Packaging” page promptly after they are released. A complete refresh of my website images occurs 1-2 times a year

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

LP: I feel it is essential to show diversity of work on my homepage. Additionally, I want to feature current work here, so returning visitors to my website immediately take notice. Another objective of mine, as a food photographer, is to showcase a range of food products. My hope is that each visitor to my homepage sees an image that speaks to their needs, so they’ll want to look deeper into my website.

With that said, I like to work from a master folder that ‘lives’ on my desktop. I actively add my favorite new images to this folder as they are created. Then, when it comes time to update, my new candidates are easily accessed. From there, my aim is to create a visually interesting sequence of images based upon the rhythm of lighter and darker images and related color themes. Once I am pleased with the presentation, I’ll ask my agent and a few other trusted colleagues to weigh in on my choices. Inevitably, adjustments will be made.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

LP: I love the Mosaic Gallery layout. I knew immediately that it would give me a dramatically updated look from my previous website with liveBooks.

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

LP: It’s well worth your time to read articles on the subject of SEO. Research the best keywords for your speciality of photography. Be sure to populate all of the SEO info boxes that liveBooks provides. Enter descriptions for every image, submit your sitemaps, update your content regularly and get quality links back to your site….search engines love these things.

I’ve had great results by following liveBooks instructions for SEO. It is all about getting more traffic to your website while generating new business.

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

Ann Belden earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of Michigan and has lived in San Francisco since 1976. She was a chef/owner of Ironwood Cafe and 101 Cafe Bakery in the Cole Valley neighborhood for thirteen years, then switched careers and became a food stylist while continuing to create fine art. See more of her work at www.annbelden.com. 

My background in fine art and restaurant cooking has served me well in the food styling world. Every job is different, and the ability to problem-solve on the fly is essential. I’ve been lucky to have strong mentoring throughout my styling career, and to have worked with photographers, designers, other food stylists, prop stylists, and art directors who have strong visions.

I’m highlighting portfolio shots today. I feel strongly that it is important for food stylists to do this kind of (unpaid!) work in order to push ourselves and to show what we can do with food styling, when the constraints of advertising or editorial concerns are not present. We get to show what is possible while exploring our collaborative power with a given photographer.

These are my top three tips to help you build your food styling portfolio, while strengthening your vision as a stylist: 

Photography by Holly Stewart | www.hollystewart.com

1. Look for inspiration everywhere: The photo above was inspired by a trip to a local farmer’s market. The produce was gorgeous, so we decided to create some moody, painterly still lifes before moving on to our planned shots. By breaking away from our original shot schedule, I was able to practice styling a new product while gaining a valuable image for my portfolio.

Photo by Terry Heffernan | www.heffernanfilms.com

Photo by Terry Heffernan | www.heffernanfilms.com

Photo by Terry Heffernan | www.heffernanfilms.com

Photographer and stylist work in this manner to learn how to effectively communicate with each other while bringing out the best in one another’s work. The three shots above were done with minimal propping on a white seamless background, in order to highlight the food with few or zero distractions.

Photo by Nader Khouri | www.naderkhouri.com

Photo by Holly Stewart | www.hollystewart.com Props by Diane McGauley | www.dianemcgauley.com

2. Learn your props (or consult a professional): A trip to a prop house together or a meeting with a great prop stylist can really help set the tone for your test shoot, and again, will tell you a lot about each other’s stylistic concerns and preferences. The two photos above were the result of collaborative propping choices, and are successful in communicating not just the delicious nature of the food, but also a kind of ease and elegance in the way its served.

Photo by Bill Baker | www.billbakerphoto.com

Photo by Scott Peterson | www.scottpetersonproductions.com

3. Don’t be afraid of failure: Finally, I’d like to add that there will probably be some test shoots that don’t produce a lot of great shots for your portfolio. You may not find a groove with that photographer, or you may both be a little dissatisfied with your choice of subject matter, surface, props, etc. It is all a learning experience, and the good news is that you can always try again, or chalk it up to experience with no harm done. Most of the time, if you keep at it, you’ll get at least one wonderful new shot for your website, while forging a new relationship or strengthening an existing one. Both will help your styling career for years to come.

Happy testing!

Ann Belden
Ann Belden – Food Stylist
annbelden@sbcglobal.net

We are so excited to introduce one of our fantastic support and customer service representatives, Lily! She has been with liveBooks since November of 2015 and loves having the ability to help clients showcase their creative passions with the world. Fun fact: Lily wanted to be a Broadway Actress as a little girl and always has a smile on her face!

Quick Facts:
Hometown: Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
Favorite liveBooks8 feature: the new Mosaic Gallery layout! It is so customizable, giving your website a distinct feel
Favorite store: Anthropology
Favorite food: Cheese
Favorite TV show: New Girl (People tell Lily she reminds them of Zoey Deschanel!)

Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is more important now than ever. Simply defined, SEO is the ability for online search engines to recognize your site through proper indexing. With a sound SEO strategy, you will be able to organically drive customers to your business, based on keywords and common search terms.

With a saturated marketplace, it is often challenging to drive your desired client base to your website. It is proven that just about 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results (imFORZA), so it is absolutely vital that you stay on top of your SEO game. Getting your site boosted in search engine results will result in a free rise in traffic to your website.

liveBooks takes the guesswork out of your SEO strategy. Our SEO EVERYTHING™ tool is here to help boost your online visibility, allowing users to connect with your site organically. Easily add title tags, page and image descriptions, and keywords to every aspect of your site. From your homepage, down to individual images, your site will be working to ensure that the right customers are seeing your site in their search engine results.

SEO EVERYTHING™ OVERVIEW

Quickly add tags, descriptions, keywords, image alt text and more to your website so that your site is easily searchable and indexed properly, resulting in increased traffic from search engines.

IMAGE/PAGE LEVEL

Add a title, description, keyword, and even a photo credit to every image on your site to ensure search engines can crawl all of your content.

• Title Tag – add words and phrases to explain to search engines what your website is all about, ensuring that you come up under the appropriate search term
• Description Tag – provide concise explanations of the content of your web page for search engines to crawl through
• Keywords – add words or phrases, relevant to your business, to be crawled and cataloged by search engines
• Navigation Label – change the navigation label on your site’s URLs to specific pages on your website
  • For example, yoursite.com/about-us can be changed to yoursite.com/abouttheteam
• Page Indexing – allow search engines to index your page
• Follow Links – allow search engines to follow links on your page
• Canonical Links – if someone tries to copy your content and paste it on their website, search engines will still recognize you as the primary owner of the content. This is especially important for websites that are constantly generating new, fresh content!

SITE LEVEL

Your liveBooks8 site will allow you to edit your site title, site description, set your search settings, and choose the most accurate Schema.org organization type to help search engines better index and leverage your content.

• Site Title – edit how the title of your website appears in search engine result lists
• Description – edit how the description of your web pages appears in search engine result lists
• Option Edit Search Settings – site verification codes help validate your identity to third-party sites and services such as Google, Bing, Pinterest, and Twitter
• Schema.org – choose the most accurate schema.org organization type for your site to help search engines better index and leverage your content