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Click the link to the right to "Be Our Fan" & Tag your MudRun Photos!
Please also read below for important information!
(click images to enlarge)
ProPhotoToGo.com is again proud to co-sponsor this year’s Official U.S.M.C. Mud Run held on September 19th, 2009!
Available By Calling with jpg Number!
$20.00 for 4/4x6 Team Photos
To Order
…CALL…
803-957-7102 or 866-664-3396
Mon-Wed/9am-4pm
MC/Visa
We also have last years 4x6 Finish Line prints available to purchase.
You will need to tell us the JPG number as shown in last years photo gallery.
The two sample Posters (shown above), as well as the mosaic (shown below) were produced at our local SC Studio/Lab.
803-957-7102 or 866-664-3396.
(click image to enlarge)
The official 2009 Mud Run photographers are a collection of:
“Professional Photographers of South Carolina.” (PPSC)
A portion of proceeds are going to the Organization to support our Marines and their families.
Thanks to all of those who helped make this year's Mud Run such a fun and worthwhile event, and a special thanks to all of the participants of this year's 16th Annual U.S.M.C. Ultimate Challenge Mud Run ! We hope to see you all again next year, and until then..."Here's mud in your eye!"
Sprint/Nextel has decided to sever its Internet connection with Cogent, another Internet service provider, according to last night's statement from Cogent.
Internet health data indicates that Cogent and Sprint are no longer exchanging traffic.
As a result, it is no longer possible for many Sprint customers and Cogent customers to directly communicate across the Internet.
Some say it's a battle for bandwith, but others think it's much more...
Jay Bird posing with a great impression of a "cheerleader."
Sorry Jason~ I just get the biggest laugh when I come across
this photo! This was just prior to a sporting event and I don't
even know who shot it. But if it's on the server, it's fair game.
I get a kick out of some of the images I find.
Now if Trez had crossed his eyes, would they also stick?
I'm just not feel'n it~
Hey all.
I don't know that I believe in astrology as anything other than a form of entertainment, but my sign is Pisces and I really do love water. I grew up in the Midwest and didn't get to spend too much time near any great bodies of water, but whenever I'm near a lake or a river or even the rain, I feel right. I get relaxed and chill and my mood instantly improves. Partly, this is why I was going to attend school in Seattle.
I like to think that the best photos I've ever taken have all been done to illustrate things that I love. Taking pictures matters more to me when I'm taking pictures of something I want to share, something I want to remember, something I want to capture. For me, it's all about combining that jolt I get from photography with the energy I get from what matters to me. Pairs of combined loves. Photography & Music. Photography & Color. Photography & Nature. Photography & Water.
Anyway, enough rambling. Here are some of the photos I've taken of water that I like the best. (I thought this was a fitting entry for our hottest day of the summer thus far...102 degrees, blech)
Woman Lake, MN - film
Folly Beach, Charleston, SC - digital, selective coloring set to blue
Washington State shore - digital, shot underexposed and then corrected with levels
Woman Lake, MN - digital, shot on fluorescent
Woman Lake, MN - digital, shot on fluorescent
Folly Beach, Charleston, SC - digital
Greenwood Park, Des Moines, IA - film
Folly Beach, Charleston, SC - digital
Folly Beach, Charleston, SC - digital
Folly Beach, Charleston, SC - digital
I know this looks like two blogs in one week from me, but don't worry - I'm not trying to overacheive, just catch up! 
So I decided that for this entry, I'm going to write about self-portraiture. As you can tell from most of the photos I've posted here so far, I didn't exactly get my start in portrait photography. It's always felt more natural for me to photograph nature, animals, and still objects. People are harder to control. But when I decided I wanted to have photography as my career, I knew I needed to become more proficient in portraiture. When I first started out taking shots with models in them, I used my friends, my parents, people I knew. And that was ok, but still difficult. After a while, it came to me. I needed to know how to take pictures of people, right? So why didn't I put myself in the model's shoes for a while? I started experimenting with self-portraiture, but I didn't spend too much time on it. Eventually, through the photo-sharing website Flickr, I heard about the 365 project. The terms of this project are simple - take a picture a day for a whole year. Hence the '365.' Most of the people I saw working on a '365' were shooting all of their photos as self-portraits, and I decided to give it a try. What better way to gain experience than to make practicing a habit?
Anyway, I ended up stopping my '365' after Day 90 due to a few complications, but here are some of my favorite shots from those first 90 days.
^ Day One - A last minute, 11:45 PM shot...with, obviously, whatever I found laying around. No timer, just hand-held. ^
Day Ten - Taken at Musician's Supply while I was waiting for my boyfriend to get through with work. Loved the fog...this was two exposures, with and without me, put together in Photoshop. First shot was hand-held, second with a timer.
Day Twenty-Four - This one's a little scary. I call it "Bionic Tess," haha. The little silver ball is actually the top to a pepper grinder. This shot was taken on macro, hand-held.
Day Thirty-Nine - Another double exposure, this time both on a timer. They were both shot at the same angle and then one was flipped. I erased the half without me in each picture and then blended the layers together. It was shot on a fluorescent white balance, which gives it that blue look.
Day Forty-Four - A triple exposure. Same methods to put it together, but a different effect entirely. The sharp shades of blue are left there intentionally...I just like the way it looks.
Day Forty-Six - Another double exposure, this time done a little differently. I had a tripod to use with my self timer, so I was able to line my shots up a little better. I took the two images into Photoshop, combined them, set the top layer to multiply, and erased around my edges. Can you tell I went through a "blue phase?"
Day Fifty-Eight - I love this picture. Self-timer, some slight touch-ups in Photoshop. I was actually laying down on a black rug - simply had to use Levels to get this effect.
Day Seventy - A slight throwback to the "blue phase," this was taken in front of my bathroom window. I didn't use any lighting except what was already provided by nature, and I think that's what makes this photo so cool in my eyes. The cross-lighting is just perfect to illuminate my face. Love it.
^ Day Eighty-One - I guess I was hungry! Taken on self-timer...it took a few tries to get this one right. ^
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Anyway, as I hope you can tell, I did learn a lot from my ninety days of self-portraiture, even if I got too busy to finish out the full 365. I feel more comfortable taking pictures with models now, and I tend to think a whole lot more 'out of the box' when posing people.
| Hello there! I finally ran out of reasons to procrastinate... here is my first blog! So, lemme take a short moment to introduce myself. My name is Jessica Lee Dunning and I've been a Photographer for Pro Photo since May 2007. I just want to say that I LOO0O0OO0OVE my job! (And I'm not just saying that because I am getting paid to do this right now. haha) I'll just make this short and sweet (since this is my second time attempting to create a blog- last one got deleted somehow) and I'll get into how I got where I am some other time. Working for Pro Photo is a lot of fun! Everyday is different, there are new challenges and experiences everywhere my job takes me. From sitting glued to a computer in the backwoods of our Lexington office, to Fort Jackson or Fort Benning full of soldiers, weapons, and usually bad weather, to setting up and photographing vitamin bottles for hours and then days-ohmygosh that's tedious and boring, to cute little dancers in tutus and slippers at dance studios, or kids accidentally whacking you in the head with a baseball bat while posing their baseball picture for youth sports, to watching drunk older people dance at high school or family reunions... I've been everywhere and photographed everything! Yeah, we do work hard, but we have a lot of fun doing it. There are always a lot of laughs. For example, just this morning I laughed so hard my ears hurt. Yeah, I didn't know that you could laugh so hard your ears hurt either. I'll tell you the story, but it was kinda one of those "you had to be there" things. So, I was sitting at the laptop right in front of the window to the front porch of the office. Trevor walked out onto the porch and caught my eye for a brief second, just long enough to watch him step onto a pole, which rolled, and sent him backwards knocking four huge displays over and then he toppled off the porch along with the coat rack!!! He did like three summersaults on the grass before he finally came to a stop. I had to wait like four minutes for me to stop laughing before I went out there and asked him if he was ok. STATUS UPDATE: Trevor suffered minor cuts and bruises and is doing fine now. My ears don't hurt anymore, but just the thought of him flipping off the porch still makes me chuckle. |
The first picture above was from my first day working for Pro Photo! Fort Jackson Family Day May 31, 2007.
Me and Thomas playing around with the weapons at Fort Jackson, August 2007.
Bjana, Trevor, me, & Jason playing around before we started "shooting" the soldiers, November 2007
Bjana and I lookin tough!! Ready for battle!! July 2007
 | hahaha! Trying to pose for our Pro Photo Family Christmas Picture, December 2007. You would think Photographers would know how to pay attention, pose and smile, but I don't think we got one that we were all looking and smiling! That little bugger in the middle is Jackie the Pro Photo dog. She stays in the office with us. She is very friendly and greets everyone that comes to the office. |
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| Doing "test shots" at an outside portrait event, February 2008. |
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Me with Thomas as the Easter Bunny.... Dang Shannon, have enough equipment?.... Bjana & Tess shooting youth sports in the rain, March 2008 |
Me posing a group of dancers that performed at the Children's Home BBQ, May 2008. Dancers are one of my favorite things to photograph. |  |
 | All right, I guess I've shared enough photos for the day. What do yall think about my first posting? Boring? Entertaining? Worth the effort? Share your comments! Ok, I'm hungry, I'll catch yall next week... |
Every year in September, the Greater Columbia Marine Foundation hosts the largest Mud Run in the Southeast. The race attracts thousands of people from all over the Southeast and beyond. The Ultimate Challenge Mud Run is over 4.2 miles, and has 30 obstacles. These obstacles have to be crossed by each team and every single participant, and require team work and a lot of determination. The 4.2 mile course is an all-terrain race conducted on dirt roads, improved and unimproved trails through the training area. These trails include mud holes, walls, trenches and other obstacles that require swimming, crawling, climbing. and jumping. Some people come to compete, but many come just to complete!
This year's Mud Run will be held on September 20th. ProPhotoToGo is proud to sponsor this event, and we are honored to announce that we have been chosen as the Official Photographers of the USMC 15th Annual Ultimate Challenge Mud Run.
I left off at around middle school age, so that's where I'll pick it up.
Eighth grade, for me, was about the same as all the grades before it. It was the same school that I'd been in for the previous two years, and I already knew all the teachers from seeing them around. The subject matter we were learning was basically the same. The most boring thing of all, for me, was art class. The only art teacher at the middle school, Mr. Martin, was...awful. He was the most bland teacher I've ever had, even to this day. I think he was HIRED as the wrestling coach and then picked up the art classes so he'd have something else to do. Needless to say, he didn't do a whole lot of inspiring my creativity. That, I had to do on my own.
It was the summer after eighth grade that I began to truly become a photographer. I realized that high school was coming, and that meant I'd have a lot more freedom as well as a lot more specialised instruction. I'd seen the work my brother had done in high school art and I was anxious to start my own portfolio. I started a tradition with myself - around once a week, I took photo trips. They were nothing big - I couldn't drive yet, so I'd just walk to areas around my house. And it's not like I had some expensive camera, or anything - I still had that Nikon EM from my mother. But these photo trips got me going. I would shoot roll after roll of film and then spend all the money I had on getting them developed.
I remember one trip in particular really well. It was towards the start of my photo trips, but it was a successful one all the same. I started off early that morning, walking straight from my house with camera hanging from shoulder and film cannisters making my pockets bulge. When I took these trips, I never really had a destination. My goal was to find something new, not just shoot something I already knew about. This particular morning, I headed north. My parents' house was about three blocks from the town square, so it didn't take long for me to reach the park. I halfheartedly shot off a few frames but I couldn't seem to find anything inspiring. I sat down on a bench and started gazing around. Seventh Avenue, all the shops, the restaurants - it was nothing I hadn't seen before. None of it was anything I hadn't seen before. I'd lived there my entire life. But with time, everything changes into something new, and as I continued to swing my gaze around, I noticed the post office. Boring little brick building, the Marion Post Office. But as things do, this thing had changed. The town had built a new building at the edge of our growing town to better house the business, and the old one was sitting here in front of me, abandoned. I got up from my bench and started to walk towards it. This was it, I felt my fingertips start to tingle. After walking around the building once, peering through the windows, I found a way in. I had to crawl through a small window in the back, and drop to the floor. When I landed, I checked my camera...and started shooting. I found frame after frame of interesting subject matter. Only a post office...turned into something beautiful. I exhausted a few rolls of film and paused, only to hear my stomach grumbling. I decided I better solve that problem, and crawled back out the window to head towards home. I was dusting the dirt off my shorts when I looked up and saw something else beautiful. A block or two away, the town had bought all the properties to build a new city hall. Construction workers were in the process of tearing down all the old buildings to make way for the new one.
But there was one left standing. I started to walk towards it, feeling that tingle and forgetting my stomach. The block was enclosed in a chain link fence and there were construction workers milling about, so I didn't sneak inside - but I got one single gorgeous picture. This gigantic brick house, overgrown and abandoned, empty windows and derelict edges. Beautiful.
When I got this roll of film back from Hall's and saw this shot, I knew. Capturing the beauty, this was what I wanted to do, every day, my entire life. I was a photographer. And my career hadn't even begun.
Hello all! Since it’s the hottest month here in sunny South Carolina, I decided to cool it down a bit by sharing some “cold” feeling photographs.
This is an abandoned van I found behind an old packing plant on Walter Rawl Road in Lexington, SC. The company used the van to transport the workers to and from the fields to harvest crops.
(February 2008, Canon EOS 40D f/4.5 1/40 sec. ISO 640 53mm focal length)
When I lived in Maine, one of my favorite places to take pictures was in the abandoned Bangor Water works. It once supplied the city with drinking water and generated electricity with one of the most powerful pumps in New England. For many years the building remained off-limits and just stood on the west bank of the Penobscot decaying. In 2006, the building was reconstructed and turned into a 35-unit affordable housing complex.
(September 2003, Mamiya 645AFD Medium format Black & White film All available light)
At the time, in early February 2004, Leah was just a model for my college portfolio. Four years later, she is one of the best friends I have. In the early fall in 2003 I was shopping in Northampton, Massachusetts when I saw this beautiful Italian girl, that I knew I had to photograph. She introduced herself as Hannah, little did I know at the time I had stumbled upon a student photographer’s dream, SHE WAS A TWIN! I continued to photograph these gorgeous girls over the school year and we became really good friends. After I graduated college I decided to stay in the area and we became housemates!
(February 2004, Mamiya 645 AFD with Leaf digital back Studio lighting, some Photoshop effects)
At least I have a beautiful picture to go with the ugly bruise that STILL remains on my right shin as a result of taking this picture. I was photographing an event on the Charleston SC Airforce base at dusk when I saw this picture-perfect moment by our company van outside. When I was “skateboarding” the tripod on wheels back inside, it got caught on the carpet somehow and halted to a stop and slammed into my shin. Somehow, four months later, I still have a visible bruise but at least I have a nice 20x30 print to remind me of my favorite things about South Carolina hanging on my wall. …Bruises. No, really, Palm Trees. :0)
(April 2008, Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II f/4.5 1/8 sec. on a tripod ISO 640 38 mm focal length)
I firmly believe self portraits are vital to improving your photography skills. It puts you in the spotlight, where you always ask your clients/models to be. The best way to learn how to pose someone in a photo, is to do it yourself. It challenges your skills without having the pressure of other people there to distract you or contradict your abilities. Having to set up your tripod & camera, obtain correct exposure, lighting, & composition, AND pose YOURSELF with the right expression too, in time before the self-timer goes off, now that takes some skill! If you can successfully pull off a photo shoot of yourself, then your chances with photographing another individual are greater!
This picture was taken at the tree farm across the road from my parents’ old house in Kenduskeag, Maine. Here lies a dyeing bird in my hands. It was about 45 degrees outside and the bird was half frozen; so was I. The dress I am wearing is my mom’s wedding dress. Yes, I did ask her permission! I’ve used it for several other photo shoots over the years. Actually, I think this dress may appear in more photographs after my parent’s wedding 27 years ago!
(November 2003 Mamiya 645 AFD color slide film, Photoshop curves)
Inspired by Polaroid Transfers, I took this image of a sunset behind a telephone pole and used the smudge tool in Photoshop to create the effect. It was pretty cold on this evening, and when I look at this picture I remember thinking I had a long walk back to my car in the dark. My fingers were ice cold, but at least I had some great pictures!
(February 7, 2008 Canon EOS 40D f/11 1.3 sec. ISO 100 28 mm focal length)
This is another image from The Bangor Water Works. These girls are such troopers! I drug them throughout the building in like 40 degree weather wearing thin silk dresses. Luckily I was looking for desolate expressions because they sure were tortured by the cold. This image has won many photo contests that I have submitted it to. It also appears in a 2004 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine.
(November 2003 Mamiya 645 AFD B&W Medium Format film All available light)
I hope you enjoyed my pictures and they cooled your summer day off a bit!
~Jessica Lee~
When I first moved to Columbia from Hawaii at age 3, we moved to the town of Irmo. I lived in Irmo until I was 8 and then moved to Lexington. I remember being very upset about moving. In Irmo, I lived in a huge neigborhood. Everyday all the kids would come jump on the trampoline and the ice cream truck would come by. All you had to was walk outside and there were people to hang out with. We moved to the deep country side of Lexington where there were no neigborhood kids to play with. Luckily I had one neigbor my age. But I remember hating that I moved to Lexington and hating living in SC period.
Now that I'm a little older, I love South Carolina. I realize all the great things that are available to the people of this state. Here in Columbia, I have beautiful rivers where everyone hangs out and has a good time. Of course there's Lake Murray where we can swim, boat, and ski. Only two hours from the beach and two hours from the mountains. This really is the life. (Now if I only had time to get out and enjoy it all!!)
Here's some pics I took at Saluda River and Lake Murray. I messed with the contrast on both of these and also the saturation on the river picture. This is how the originals looked.
In Photoshop, to mess with Saturation. Click on Layer/ New Adjustment Layer/ Hue and Saturation. Here you can mess with Hue, which will change the overall color of your picture. I typically do not use this feature. The lightness will change how light your picture is, but I typically do this with other controls. Saturation refers to the intensity of color. If you compare the two river pictures, the top one has way more color to it (maybe even a little too much!). In most cases, you want to add saturation to bring the colors out, but not TOO much that it looks unnatural. This is a handy trick to make almost any picture look a little better.
The other adjustment I make very often is with the Levels. Go to Layer/ New Adjustment Layer/ Levels. Underneath the histogram you have three sliders. From left to right, you can control black point, midtones, and white point. I moved the black point slider in to the right to exagerate my shadows and make the image darker. This also seems to give the image stronger colors and more punch in my opinion. I then moved the midtones slider to the left to lighten the image slightly. I made no Saturation adjustments to the lake image. The difference you see was made entirely by playing with the Levels. I change the Levels on tons of my images, because again its an easy two-second trick to make your images look a little stronger.
Hope this helps you make your pictures look a lil better!!
<<TRuTH>>
My name is Kim Hinson. I have been part of the Pro Photo "family" for almost 3 tears. As you will see in some of my pictures, I am NOT a photographer. My job is more support and customer service related. The pictures you see today show a little bit of what I do. During the summer months the graduating soldiers at Fort Jackson don't wear their Clas A Jackets. But we give them the option to wear it for their portrait sitting on Friday. The soldiers have not been instructed on the correct placement of their pins and badges so I help them put everything in the right place.
Step One: Put pin on Jacket
Step 2: Put Band-aid on finger
Over the weekend I worked at a Soap Box Derby race. I admit that I wasn't too excited about waking up at 7am to go watch a bunch of wooden cars roll down a hill. But I'm glad that I did. I was taken completely by surprise with how exciting and serious of a sport this is. This was also the nicest group of people in the world! Everyone offered me food, drinks, and sun screen (is it that obvious I need sun screen?!?). Being that this is a serious sport, I wanted to get some serious shots. I wanted to emphasize the speed these cars were getting. What better way to do that than with a little motion blur?
Motion blur is a tricky thing to perfect. Of course you can try to add it in with Photoshop later down the road, but I prefer to do as much in-camera as possible. Plus even the experienced Photoshopper would have a hard time getting these results! These shots were not put through Photoshop at all. I didnt even mess with the levels or contrast. For all the photographers and hobbyists who want to learn motion blur - I'll try to explain the method I used.
The first thing I do is set my F-stop, shutter speed, and ISO to get a proper exposure just like always. Shutter speed is what controls movement and stop-action. So in order to show movement in a picture you want a shutter speed that is slower than your subject. I believe these shots were taken at about 1/50th of a second. For faster moving objects, I may have used a slightly faster shutter speed. So start dropping your shutter speed and remember how many steps it takes to get to 1/50th. Then RAISE your F-Stop that same ammount of steps. Your exposure should now look roughly the same as it did to begin with. If not, adjust your F-stop accordingly.
Here is the technique for firing the shot. I got nice and low on the ground for a good angle. The subjects were coming down the hill from my right to my left. This is the hard part... you want to pan with the subject while the shutter is open. Its important that you pan at the same speed and the same direction that the subject is passing you. This is very tricky and although you see 3 good images here, I took several pictures that did not come out. The more accurate your panning, the clearer the subject is. In the first two images, I was focusing on the car furthest from me. In the first image, its almost perfect. Even the small text on the car is in focus. The second image is not quite as accurate, but still very good. When you're panning its important that you move ONLY in the direction the subject is moving, or you end up with unwanted camera movement. Funny right? You ARE moving the camera, but you dont want to move it in the wrong direction. So remember, practice takes perfect. And luckily with the digital era, practice isnt very expensive! To see the rest of the images I took, go to
http://www.photostockplus.com/home.php?tmpl=43&user_id=33487&album=148856
I'm going to leave off this time by showing a few of the first pictures that I remember taking and instantly loving.
Photography is an art. Whether you're taking beautiful scenic shots to be displayed on someone's wall or family portraits to be displayed in someone's wallet, its an art. Trying to make a living as an artist is a difficult task, as I've learned from both the photography and the music business. Most artists spend tons of time perfecting their art, their technique, and talent - and not enough time developing their business. I've been working in the photography industry for my whole life. From processing rolls of film as a child in my family's 1-Hour Photo Lab to taking portraits of soldiers graduating boot camp, I've always been involved with the business of photography. I've had access to the best photographic equipment my entire life, and never taken advantage of it. Until recently, all I could see with photography was dollars. A living. Now, however, I'm starting to see the art. Just taking a camera with me over the weekend and having fun.
The moral of the story is that - taking the best pictures on earth does no good if you can't market them. I'm a photographer by trade and for a living first, and as a hobby second. I am blessed to have been raised in this industry and have a solid foundation of business. But many aspiring professional photographers are photographers as a hobby first, and by trade second. Pretty pictures don't put food on the table. So make sure you spend as much time developing your business as you do developing your art.
That being said, these are some of the first "artistic" pictures I've ever taken. Being a professional photographer for over 4 years, that's kinda sad lol. But I figured I'd start off taking pictures of things I love. The first shot is a picture taken at the Columbia fair grounds while photographing a BBQ cookoff for a children's home charity. I just looked up and saw a beautiful scene and snapped a few shots. I've always loved industrial scenery. And then the beautiful sky just set it off! The second picture is a pic I took of my car behind the Pastime movie theater in Lexington. I did a whole photo shoot of my car that day, so more are to come. I just really liked the angle and colors. These were taken on a 1DS and a 40D. I took several different shots of each of those scenes and hope to make both into collages for big prints to hang on my walls at home.
So remember, photography (for profit) is a balance of art and business. Most photographers are unbalanced in that their business is underdeveloped. I have the opposite problem of not focusing enough on my art. Well hopefully that is changing, and I'll keep posting so you can watch as I grow! Stay tuned and hit me up with any questions or comments!
I thought it was strange to see only one building covered in fog~!
A little fog does not stop the training!
Early morning in Tampa, Florida.
This is my friend Dave. We served in the Navy as Photo Mates.
I stopped to visit in Jacksonville on my way to a convention in Tampa.
A Few of the Fans watch the Miss Georgia Contestants Perform
Col. Coss presented Miss Georgia with a Trophy thanking her for coming out and supporting the Troops at Fort Benning.
