Toni & Billy expand the Summerville Flowership

It was such a joy to reconnect with our old friends Toni and Billy this week!

We’ve known Toni for a very long time…since way back when she and Cami worked at the same company. And we’ve known Billy since we photographed their wedding. It was great to see them again and photograph some new marketing photos for their beautiful business at the Summerville Flower Shop! Toni and Billy recently expanded and moved to this gorgeous new location. We love it!!!

Toni is an incredibly gifted florest. We are so happy that you found your true calling my friend! If anyone needs a great florist…we highly recommend contacting Toni and her team @SummervilleFlowerShop!!!

NASCAR 350, Powered by Ethanol

Sometimes I have to pinch myself. It truly is hard to believe I get picked to photograph some of the cool assignments I get!!!

Earlier this summer, I had the pleasure of photographing the NASCAR Iowa Corn 350, Powered by Ethanol, at the Iowa Speedway on Rusty Wallace Drive outside Des Moines. I was shooting for the Iowa Corn Growers Association (ICGA), which is the title sponser of the race. The best part about that is I get carte blanch to go just about anywhere I want and photograph every aspects of the day. I bounce around from the VIP tent to the Club suite, from Midway with all the vendor trucks to the infield with all the team garages, and of course the race itself from inside and outside the track. I cover the pre-race festivities like VIP presentations, pace-car rides, pre-race concert, behind-the-scenes appearances, driver introductions, and more. I’m one of only 2 photographers that gets to cover the most famous words in the racing world…”Gentlemena, start your engines”. Then we literally RUN off the track and out of harm’s way. Once the race starts, I’m constantly moving around, looking for unique angles and interesting subjects. And of course after the race is over, I get to cover all the celebrations at the end!

The Iowa Speedway where the race is held is a 7/8-mile oval motor racing track in Newton, Iowa…approximately 30 miles (48 km) east of Des Moines. The track was designed with influence by Rusty Wallace, who patterned it after Richmond Raceway, a short track where Wallace saw a lot of success during his racing days. It has over 25,000 permanent seats as well as a unique multi-tiered Recreational Vehicle viewing area along the backstretch. The track hosts the NTT IndyCar Series and NASCAR events.

This year’s Iowa Corn 350 was held on August 3, 2025, at Iowa Speedway, contesting over 350 laps around the D-shaped oval. It was the 23rd race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. William Byron won the race. Chase Briscoe finished 2nd, and Brad Keselowski finished 3rd. Ryan Blaney and Ryan Preece rounded out the top five, and Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Joey Logano, and Austin Dillon rounded out the top ten.

Many thanks to the amazing team at ICGA for all their hard work planning and organizing this incredible event. It was such an honor capturing all the energy and excitement of the day for them!!!

Rosen Hagood Charleston Office

Last week I had the pleasure of going back to Rosen Hagood law firm to photograph headshots for new attorneys that have joined the team. Their marketing group prefers I photograph everyone as a 3/4-lengh portrait, giving their graphic artists options for using the images in marketing material….while still being able to zoom in and crop headshots out of these photos for the website. This is one of the many reasons I love shooting with the Nikon Z9. The high-resolution 45MP sensor on Nikon’s flagship camera gives my clients PLENTY of pixels to play with so that they can kill two birds with one stone!

(Nikon Z9, Nikkor Z 70-100 f2.8, Godox/Flashpoint AD200 flash, Manfrotto supports, Westcott 60″ umbrellas)

Seamon Whiteside Columbia Office

Seamon Whiteside is expanding! I’ve photographed headshots, team photos, marketing shots, and of course a ton of their engineering projects throughout North and South Carolina. I’ve done photos at their offices in Mt. Pleasant, Greenville, Charlotte, Spartanburg…and now they are opening a new one in Columbia!

It was my pleasure to meet up with the founding members of the new Columbia office at The Horseshoe on the University of South Carolina Campus (USC). We strolled around, found some nice backdrops, captured a variety of headshots, and photographed some team photos. Plus one of the guys from the Charlotte office joined us to get his headshot taken as well!

Many thanks to Brittany for helping organize everyone’s schedules to make this happen…

High-Key Headshots for Bridge Commercial

I photograph high-key headshots for a lot of firms in Charleston. That clean, modern, all-white background just seems to be a popular choice for many companies. Plus it’s also an easy background to knock out in Photoshop if your marketing team wants to change the background to something else. I know the Rosen Hagood law firm does that with all the high-key portraits I shoot for them.

Periodically, companies will switch up their marketing or change their web-design, and ask me for a different background to go with their new “look”. But I’ve been working with Bridge Commercial for probably over a decade and they just continue to love the simple and elegant look of the high-key background. What’s not to like?!?

The key to lighting a high-key portrait is the background light. If you don’t light the background separately from the subject, even the whitest background will still come out looking dull. That’s because of the inverse square law of light. As you can see in my setup, I’ve got two speedlights on the left-side stand as my main light, which is Group A. I’ve got one speedlight on the right-side stand as my fill light, which is Group B. The power ratios in both groups are about the same. But having one speedlight instead of two naturally gives me half the amount of light, providing a pleasing ratio between the highlights and the shadows on my subject. Finally, I’ve got one speedlight on the stand behind the subject, aimed at the center of the background. The ratio on this light is double the others because I want the background to be nice and bright.

(Nikon Z9, Nikkor Z 70-200 f2.8, Godox/Flashpoint transmitter and speedlights, Manfrotto supports, Westcott 60″ umbrellas, and a twist-flex white background)

Headshtots for Premier Physical Therapy

It was a real pleasure to meet and photograph Darien for Premier Physical Therapy. She was super sweet and fun to work with. Her heritage is from Honduras. So I got to practice a little Spanish, which was awesome. Jill is the owner of Premier Physical Therapy. I’ve been photographing headshots and marketing photos for her and her team for a very long time. And I have to say, she always seems to find the nicest people to join her staff!!!

Spartanburg Trails and other Commercial Development Projects

After photographing headshots and marketing photos for the Seamon Whiteside team in Spartanburg, I had the pleasure of capturing a number of their engineering projects for them around town. From all the new trails they’ve added to the city’s vast rails-to-trails Daniel Morgan Trail System, to multifamily apartment complexes, from healthcare centers to municipal buildings, from commercial restoration projects to multi-use facilities…it was really neat to see all the rejuvination they are bringing to Spartanburg. Plus it was a great way to get to know this beautiful South Carolina City that, which up until this point I had known very little about!

Seamon Whiteside – Spartanburg Team

It’s been my pleasure to work with the Seamon Whiteside engineering firm over many years. Last week I had the pleasure of photographing their team at the Spartanburg office!!!  I really enjoyed exploring this beautiful South Carolina town.

Industrial Construction Projects for Seamon Whiteside

Seamon Whiteside has been the engineering firm behind a number of large-scale industrial and commercial projects around the Summerville, Ladson, and Goose Creek areas in recent months. It was a pleasure spending the day visiting these locations to get shots of several of them in various stages of completion!
(Nikon Z9, Nikkor Z 14-24, Nikkor Z 24-120, DJI Mavic 3 Pro)

Charlotte Assignment for Seamon Whiteside

Saturday was a LOOOONG day!!!

I left the house at 6:00 am and didn’t get home until 11:00 pm. Why you ask? I drove to Charlotte to photograph 8 major projects for the engineering firm of Seamon Whiteside. It was an ambitious goal. And I probably should have broken it up into 2 days. But the weather was great. And I wanted to knock it out to help keep them on budget. I mapped out an efficient route from one project to the next. The locations included everything from industrial warehouse complexes, to large scale multi-family units. And I just went at it non-stop from 9:00 am to 7:30 pm, with just one quick break at a Chick-fil-A to wolf down a sandwich.

It was an exhausting day! But it was also very rewarding. I’m pleased with the wide variety and creativity I was able to capture, even under pressure. As a photographer, it’s good to push your limits and challenge your skills from time to time. This assignment DEFINITELY did that!!! 🙂

South Carolina Convenience & Petroleum Marketers Association at Sweetgrass Inn

Every summer I look forward to photographing this fun event at the Sweetgrass Inn on Wild Dunes Resort for the South Carolina Convenience & Petroleum Marketers Association.

SC-CPMA is the voice of the petroleum & convenience store industry in South Carolina. They serve their members by lobbying the General Assembly, multiple state agencies and the Congressional delegation on issues that impact the industry. Among the top issues they address are: underground and above-ground tank regulations, the SUPERB Fund, tobacco, alcohol, lottery sales, fuel taxes and much more.

The photography for this program is sponsored by Coca Cola Consolidated. What I do is bring out two photographers with two separate Portrait Stations for guests to choose from…one location is outdoors with an environmental background, the other is indoors with a studio background. My good friend and amazing photographer, Robbin, always photographs the indoors setup…while I sweat to death photographing the outdoors setup! 🙂 After we’ve photographed each couple or family, we print out beautiful 5×7 portraits of each, and place them in an elegant black folio. The prints are placed on a table for guests to take home as a keepsake at the end of the evening. Everyone loves the instant gratification!

Clarity Conference at The Mills House – Day 3

What a fabulous group!!!

I had the absolute pleasure of photographing the annual 3-day Clarity Conference for Solutions Group Services at The Mills House Hotel. On Day 3, program was packed with more fantastic presentations, a networking break, and a wrap-up Q&A session. The event concluded with some final staff headshots before everyone headed their separate ways.

Using a powerful combination of experience and expertise, Solutions Group Services helps organizations work through significant reimbursement challenges. They pioneered a better way for providers to collect their charges from payers – not the patient. This is accomplished through technology and consulting solutions. Everyday the growing SGS team advances this reality through innovative solutions as well as through offering a continuously growing library of informational resources. Solutions Group Services is more than just a company, they are the solution.