One year after the Americans dropped the bomb, Miseki Liu was born in Nagasaki to Chinese parents. He started painting at the age of 12. Today, with more than 30 photo books published, Liu spends half of his time in his studio on Miyakejima Island, and the other half traveling the world.

At age 18 he enrolled at the University of Photography in Tokyo. "I wanted to achieve paintings that look like photographs. I wanted to do photographic paintings, so to speak. So I thought the fastest route in finding the technique would be to study about photography." However, dissatisfied with the teachings in Tokyo, Liu moved on to L.A. to study color technique at the Art Center School near the San Fernando Valley, supporting himself with part-time work like washing dishes. At age 25, Liu began his career as a photographer and has never looked back. His studies in L.A. taught Liu how to use color and color combinations. And his original pursuit of becoming a painter still has some bearing on the composition of his photos today, especially since most of his earlier influences are from traditional paintings, such as the composition of French artists like Cezanne. Another skill that was developed over the years is Liu’s ability to see and think like a camera’s computer. There is nothing serendipitous about his work. Liu "sees" the photograph in his head long before he releases the shutter. Today he can exactly foresee how each color will change and come out on film. While the typical photographer starts out by working as an apprentice under an established artist, Liu is completely self-taught. He took his major influences from Richard Avedon and by studying photos in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. One advantage Liu has over Japanese photographers is his different way of seeing things, through the eyes of a Chinese person who grew up in Japan. His unique cultural background comes through in his photographs. Liu is on good terms with Helmut Newton, Bertstein (a god among photographers) and David Hamilton, and has photographed famous stars and royalty from Brooke Shields to the Princess of Morocco. Liu photographed Brooke Shields when she was 16 years old, and again at 27, shortly before her marriage to tennis star Andre Agassi. "I enjoyed the earlier shoot with Brooke much better. For the latter shoot her mother-cum-manager had become so assertive she tried to control every little detail, leaving not much room for artistic expression." Liu has recently returned from China, where he took candid shots using an ordinary compact camera. In this series, gorgeously dressed models enter everyday scenes such as a busy market place, with everybody in the shot looking at the model, not noticing Liu with his camera under his jacket. The results are surreal scenes that look perfectly normal and otherworldly at the same time. All these photos were taken without looking through the viewfinder, but by shooting stealthily from the hip. Another series that Liu brought back from China has carefully arranged scenes with Tai Chi masters dressed in turn-of-the-century costumes, local gangsters with charming women dressed in ‘20s fashions, and beautiful amateur models dressed in early 1900s kimonos. Liu always uses available light, never flash. But the China trip was a simple affair compared with some of Liu’s photo-book projects. Take "Lady Casablanca," for instance, a book that sold over 250,000 copies. It took Liu ten days of location hunting, plus two weeks of shooting. It involved an assistant, a makeup artist, a stylist, a manager, a coordinator, the publisher, two local coordinators/guides, and of course Liu himself and the model. The entire project was shot in Morocco, utilizing the special kind of light only to be found in that part of the world. One of Liu’s favorite lighting situations is sunset, a time he calls the "magic hour." But even after dark Liu will not use flash, and is known to have used the headlights of three cars to get the mood and colors he wanted. Despite a hectic schedule with commercial assignments for fashion and advertising, and besides frequent book projects, Liu pursues his dream project of creating a photo album that features hotels around the world. It’s not exactly architectural photography, but more about showing the character of the hotels and the moods they convey. The next big project for Liu is The 5th Shanghai International Photographic Art Exhibition in October, in which he is the first and only foreigner to be invited to participate.