liveBooks supports the use of photography to help drive social change and to promote many different causes. These websites were donated in the spirit of philanthropy.
WHAT YOU DO
Viena Woodstone is a brave, beautiful, compassionate, gentle little girl who loves to play and dance. Unfortunately she has a life threatening illness.
The formal name for her condition is Cerebellar Seizures which means seizures originating from a lesion in her cerebellum which is also attached to her brain stem. It manifests as hundreds of localized seizures per day and is accompanied by a rapid and critical drop in oxygen. Viena’s condition is exceedingly rare. She is the first known case in Australia, and at last count, only the 12th case in the world. However at 18 months of age , when Viena received her formal diagnosis, she astounded her doctors by being ahead in all her developmental milestones.
Viena is going to undergo surgery on May 1st, 2012 at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. Her surgery itself is free, however their family and friends are raising money to cover the significant expenses incurred during their six week stay in Melbourne. Expenses include travel, accommodations and extra child care. They believe subsequent surgeries are likely but won’t know for sure until after the surgery on May 1st.
Please visit Viena’s website and to learn more about her story and how you can donate.
I have always been a liveBooks fan since setting up my first professional site with them three years ago. Working with them to improve the strength of our project was a no-brainer. The site is clean, classy and professionally designed, and very is easy for visitors to use. It provides an incredible tool for us to show our visual credentials and share information as we develop funding for the project. The number of tools available for us to use present a number of interesting possibilities in making the site more usable and interesting as the project evolves. Once the project is complete, this same site becomes a great place to present our photo essays to the world in an equally classy, elegant manner and tell the stories of these incredible organizations.
Rick D’Elia, Photojournalist and Humanitarian
Faces of Ground Zero: Portraits of the heroes of September 11, 2001
Posted by liveBooksThe Faces of Ground Zero, Portraits of the Heroes of September 11, 2001 Collection, consist of 246 Giant Polaroids photographed by Joe McNally. These compelling, life-sized photos were shot during a three week period shortly after September 11, 2001, with additional images shot in 2002 on the garage-size, unique Giant Polaroid camera at Moby C Studio near Ground Zero in New York City. They represent a pictorial, emotional cross section of largely ordinary people who rose up to the challenges of that awful day, and did extraordinary things.
These pictures traveled to numerous cities, became a book, and proved to be a powerfully moving tribute to the collective heroism displayed on 9/11. This collection in its entirety has helped raise over two million dollars for the 9/11 relief effort. If you are interested in making a donation click here.
Foundry Photojournalism Workshops was started five years ago with a simple mission in mind: to provide some of the best training in visual storytelling to those who normally cannot afford it, so they could then tell their own stories, of their own communities. It was never easy; from locating world class faculty who would volunteer their time, to working on a shoestring budget, through logistics problems from hell, we persevered, believing in our mission above all else: aiding in the formation of emerging photographers who are and will change the way we see the world.
Throughout it all, we have chosen to remain independent, without any major underwriter or corporate support. Our sponsors, all small core supporters of the photography industry, have changed each year, with the whims of the industry – with one exception. liveBooks has been there from day one, sharing our core beliefs and mission.
Since our first year in Mexico City, liveBooks has been with us. Supporting new and emerging photojournalists by providing both full tuition scholarships for students from divergent economies who struggle just to make ends meet, to awarding a multitude of websites to the best and brightest of local and regional students at the end of each years workshop, to interviewing and featuring new talent on their RESOLVE blog – liveBooks has been our core ally in helping make our mission come alive.
liveBooks has and continues to show unending support for emerging photographers and photojournalists by offering the best websites at the best possible prices combined with the best support. If their product wasn’t the best, over half of our own world renowned faculty of award-winning photojournalists wouldn’t be using liveBooks sites for their own personal and agency work.
Simply put, whether a new voice or an old hand, liveBooks websites do what exactly what a photography website should do – they WORK, hard, to beautifully showcase a shooters vision, to help in promotion, support, and developing a robust web presence, to helping in sales and back end archive security. All for one purpose – to get the images that can change the world out to the world. From stills to the newest multimedia projects, liveBooks websites can handle it. And after five years of continual support and belief in our mission – indeed, they have coupled their own mission with ours – we couldn’t think of a better partner for bringing the world important, powerful and compelling visual stories.
While we have grown and learned much along this journey, from Mexico City to India to Istanbul, Buenos Aires and now to Thailand in 2012, one thing has and will stay the same – liveBooks will be our partner, no matter how the technological landscape changes.
Eric Beecroft, Director, Photographer and liveBooks user Foundry Photojournalism Workshops
We are so pleased with our well designed liveBooks website for the Diagnostic Microbiology Development Program. We proudly direct potential donors and volunteers to the site. We routinely include the link to the site in publications about our work in Cambodia and in talks at meetings of microbiologists. The liveBooks editSuite makes it easy to update the site with fresh photos and videos and information about recent events in the microbiology laboratories where we work. The diagnostic microbiology laboratories which the DMDP have implemented in Cambodia have recently been isolating Streptococcus suis, an emerging bacterial pathogen. Posting this information on our liveBooks website will attract the attention of microbiologists interested in using the laboratories for research on this important pathogen.
Jim McLaughlin, Ph.D, Co-founder and President of DMDP
The mission of the Diagnostic Microbiology Development Program is to build capacity for reliable infectious diseases diagnosis by strengthening the infrastructure and technical capabilities of technicians and clinical microbiologists in resource-poor countries. They accomplish this work with the assistance of many partners including volunteer clinical microbiologists willing to provide long term hands-on bench training in diagnostic microbiology.
DMDP was created in 2008 and to date have implemented microbiology laboratories in three provincial hospitals in Cambodia an provided technical assistance to the microbiology laboratory in the National Pediatric Hospital in Phnom Penh. To learn more about their amazing work go to their website or read the latest entry in their blog.
For Sexy Backs for Autism Awareness, liveBooks is the perfect product. liveBooks provides our audience with a positive viewing experience, and is an easy and supportive environment for visitors to navigate.
‘Sexy Backs’ and its junior project ‘Baby Backs’ were developed to raise awareness of Autism after my youngest son was diagnosed in 2008. The images are our interest point, but the real difference is made when people see or hear the word Autism… For those who know what Autism is, they share, and for those who don’t know what Autism is, they ask. Our liveBooks website has been an incredibly important part of our awareness project, and we can quite honestly say that we would not have had our success without liveBooks. I know thats a big statement, but if you visit our website you won’t see a lot of words, but you will see real people turning their backs FOR autism, not turning their backs on autism… and thats the key… liveBooks allows you too see!
In the latest series of photographs, Sexy Backs uses organic images, so there is no retouching. liveBooks reproduces these images beautifully. We can’t thank the team enough for producing and sponsoring a product that allows us to just be us!
James Price, Photographer and Founder of Sexy Backs for Autism
He called the concept ‘Sexy Backs’ and set out to produce simple black and white portraits, showing naked backs, that are cheeky and fun. James focused on the the essence of something we all have.
Having started the story Kenya’s Nubians: Then & Now in 2008, it wasn’t until I received a grant from the Open Society Institute before the project took on a life of its own. As I moved forward with my work and identified new audiences for the project, the development of a dedicated website specifically for the project became essential. I already had a preDesigned liveBooks site for my larger project Nowhere People, and was incredibly happy with the results I was getting from it, so there was no doubt in my mind that liveBooks would be a perfect fit. liveBooks generously donated the site to the project and as the project has developed, so has the need to expand the website. The developers at liveBooks have worked with me to customize components of the site as this project has grown. From a photo essay to international exhibitions, a multimedia feature and now into a book, Kenya’s Nubians has been an incredibly rewarding project to work on and develop. The liveBooks site has played a vital role in helping me expose the work and making sure it is accessible to a variety of important audiences.
Greg Constantine, Photojounalist
liveBooks and craigslist foundation team up for National Volunteer Week
Posted by liveBooks
NYC SALT: Engaging, inspiring, and empowering NYC teenagers through teaching visual communication skills
Posted by liveBooks
Using liveBooks as a platform for the elephant conservation project has allowed me to give the vanishing elephants worldwide visibility, currently my images have been viewed in 91 countries. The new features such as Scaler, integrated pages, video and a companion blog brings all aspects of my elephant project into one place allowing me to tell the elephant’s story in so many ways. The issues of elephant conservation are complex and being able to talk about the issues in the blog and show the video is helping people see and understand the issues surrounding their future.
When I’m on the road, I love the fact I can update my site with my latest work so fast and easily. Print sales primarily come from clients having seen my work on the liveBooks site. And the SEO capabilities are tremendous as my site now comes up #1 when one searches for ‘elephant photographer’.
Not only do proceeds from the print sales goes to the foundation but through the website, I’m able to introduce so many more people to the rescue work of the foundation (www.helpingelephants.org) as my site gains more and more visibility. Shortly I’ll be taking it one step further – my liveBooks site will be the platform for me to seek grants for the project and the documentary film.
Carol Stevenson, Photographer and Conservationist
Carol Stevenson is photographing the project, intended to span at least five years, will be an evolving collection of portraiture depicting the elephants and the unique and complex relationship they have with their Mahouts (owners/keepers). The initial body of work is augmented to document new arrivals – newly rescued elephants and new births – and to provide a continuous visual record of the evolving elephant communities.
This project is planned as both an educational tool and as a fundraising vehicle to provide ongoing support for the elephants.
Women Empowered Project: Empowering women to transform their lives and communities
Posted by liveBooks
The generous contribution by liveBooks of a website for my Curse of the Black Gold project enabled me to not only aggregate all the information for outreach, education, press and my work, but it also taught me the power of what a great website can do for my advocacy work. By allowing me to point activists, educators, students and other professionals to one site, rich with creative content and useful information, the impact of my project was propelled to another dimension.
Ed Kashi, Photojournalist
Images of Hope: Bringing awareness to childhood cancers and illnesses
Posted by liveBooksHaving the Images of Hope website created by liveBooks has been a blessing. Images of Hope was started after my son, Montana, battled Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at the age of 2 1/2. I had been wanting to find a way to give back to all those who have helped us in numerous ways while he fought for those 3 years. Photography is a passion of mine as well as for many others. Photographs capture moments, memories and they are priceless. Since the launching of the website we have had many photographers throughout the country who have become involved in helping to capture these precious moments of children battling these horrific diseases.
The website has helped with spreading awareness and bringing attention to the number one killer among kids. The families of the children photographed are beyond grateful for the images they receive. We are capturing memories of a hero, which will eventually be hope for future children diagnosed with a devastating illness. Images of Hope is dedicated to helping children and providing them with lasting memories through art. This website has been our number one way of sharing what we do. Without the capability of being able to view images the ability of spreading awareness would be much less effective.
Jessica Oatman, Photographer and Founder of Images of Hope
Jessica Oatman founded Images of Hope in January of 2008 as a way to give back to all those who have helped her son and family deal with childhood Leukemia. Her son is now in remission but has a long road ahead of him. For most of families, pictures are the last thing they would go about and have done while dealing with a crisis. But years later, as they look back, these images will be the memories of a hero and the hope for future children who will be diagnosed with a devastating disease.