About Justin
Hello. My name is Justin Hankins. I think you look great today.
How I got into photography
I spent most of my childhood energy emulating my mother’s creative talents. While my friends were out building campfires and earning merit badges, I was inside drawing, painting, and teaching myself how to play music. I enjoyed taking photographs, but I never had a “real” camera and therefore didn’t take many photos growing up.
When I got older, I realized I only had a handful of photographs from high school, and even fewer from college, so I bought my first camera to better document my life. The absence of visual documentation from some of my most important moments helped me realize the value of photography.
Since then, photography has evolved into a pretty intense passion of mine, and I made the decision several years ago to center my life on taking photographs. (Well, that, and on my girlfriend of 9 years and her own passions for pandas and the Gilmore Girls.)
Work
In addition to photographing weddings, I’ve spent the past 5 years providing artwork and stock imagery to clients around the world through my own successful fine-art photography business. I’ve traveled up and down the east coast exhibiting my photographs and meeting some truly wonderful people along the way. I’ve also had the opportunity to outfit some of America’s busiest airports with my artwork, hopefully curtailing a bit of air rage in the process.
At the same time, I’ve served as Partner and Creative Director at Meticulous Design Group, a graphic design firm I co-founded with a good friend of mine in 2000. Our work centers on helping creative organizations communicate their messages successfully through visual means. Through Meticulous, I’ve been able to share with clients my creative insights on visual communication design and website usability, as well as my technical programming experience. (Hint: this is the part that translates into “your album design will be top-notch.”)
Edumacation
My college career began at Western Michigan University, where I studied philosophy and sociology for two years before transferring to Virginia Commonwealth University to study commerce and art. After a couple semesters at VCU, I put school on hold to start my first Internet consultation company. After moving back to Virginia Beach and establishing my current photography business, I’m now finishing my degree at the University of Virginia. (I’m now the weird older guy that you remember from undergrad.)
Professional associations
I’m very proud to be a member of Wedding and Portrait Photographers International, quite literally the best wedding and portrait photographers in the world.
Professional Photographers of America is an incredible association of photographers, and I’m humbled to be in their company.
I’m also very happy to be part of the Pictage family of photographers. Nobody helps me provide total quality experiences to my customers more than Pictage does.
Anything else?
When I was in sixth grade, a classmate of mine threw a Crayon and hit our substitute teacher in the face. The substitute thought I was the one who threw it and yelled at me from across the room:
“Boy! You’re so stupid, I bet you can’t even spell ‘potato.’”
I spelled the word correctly, to which she simply shrugged and went back to reading. Since then, I’ve spent my life trying to discern the correlation between classroom mischief and the incapacity to spell “potato.” Perhaps she was just being cryptic like some old martial arts master. He who throws Crayola knows not the starch plant lexicon!
Or something.
