On a venture to Wal-Mart in Live Oak on any given weekday, you’re likely to run into a top-notch photographer dressed in his classic, navy blue work shirt and khakis with his Wal-Mart name badge affixed to his shirt front.

Russell Williams, 49, of Lee, who moonlights as a stringer photographer aside from his day-to-day tasks as an electronics sales clerk and safety team leader, recently landed a photo in the national publication Sports Illustrated when crewmen scrambled at the Daytona 500 to assess a pothole in the racetrack that had stopped the race twice back February.

Standing behind the barriers nearly 500 feet away, Williams aimed his 400mm lens and snapped the shot.

“What makes this picture so special,” he said, “is out of a pool of 15 photographers from the Associated Press and many others offering a great variety of shots, mine was chosen.”

The photo, slugged as “Pothole,” ran in the February 22, 2010 edition on page 60.

Aside from Sports Illustrated, the photo landed into nearly 15 publications, including 56 daily newspapers, Williams said.

He has been shooting photos since the age of 13 when he captured a photo of the hearse carrying the body of Kimberly Leach, a victim of serial killer Ted Bundy, as it passed through Live Oak. He later became a photographer for the U.S. Navy.

“That’s probably where I got all of my formal photography training,” he said.

Currently he works as one of several photographers for the company Action Photo Pros, and has captured his share of images with everything from presidential inaugurations, the NFL and all sorts of college sporting events, to music events and local happenings, even occasionally submitting work to the Suwannee Democrat.

“A lot of my photos go into the local papers around this area,” he said. Some of his major work stems from accident coverage and photos for trial evidence, which he sells in packages.

“It’s usually about 50-50, and everybody’s happy,” he said regarding his profit. “I would probably have to move to make a living in it.”

But that’s not his intention. He’s happy where he’s at, he assured. He has gone so far as to turn photography into a family affair, ushering several of his children and grandchildren into photography, and calls his wife, Rita, “the backbone of the organization and a God-send.”

Yet still, he manages to juggle his full-time workload at Wal-Mart with his passion for pictures.

“Rusty (as co-workers call him) is an awesome person who goes above and beyond,” said Leondra Howard, store co-manager. “His personality is awesome, just someone you’d love to work with all the time because of his pleasant demeanor and excellent customer service.”

Williams, who has been with the company for 5 years, said he hopes to move up the rungs into management within the next few year, but has no intention of laying down his camera, he said.

“I want to do it for as long as I can, some aspect of it. You know, I’m getting older, I’m not getting any younger.”