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The Great, Constantly Changing Picture Gallery, Troisième partie: la vengeance!

HeyJoe said:
Last of the VF-43 Skyhawks...
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I still have a VF-43 patch (along with a F-5 patch) given to me by Boomer. Long story, but his family was friends with my family and my mom was Stuff's (Boomer's little brother) 5th or 6th grade teacher when we lived in Annapolis.

Over the years before as I was growing up, Boomer was very kind and occasionally hooked me up with good deal visits to share a little bit of the Navy with me, as he and his dad knew how interested I was in becoming a Naval Aviator.
 
Gatordev said:
I still have a VF-43 patch (along with a F-5 patch) given to me by Boomer. Long story, but his family was friends with my family and my mom was Stuff's (Boomer's little brother) 5th or 6th grade teacher when we lived in Annapolis.

Over the years before as I was growing up, Boomer was very kind and occasionally hooked me up with good deal visits to share a little bit of the Navy with me, as he and his dad knew how interested I was in becoming a Naval Aviator.
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So one day in 1992, I got a call at my desk at the Pentagon; “Boomer” wanted to know how to get a picture of his squadron, the Jolly Rogers, on a magazine cover (I had multiple covers to my credit by then). We discussed some ideas and he expressed the wish to be on AvWeek. That was a tall order since it has to be something new and noteworthy besides being a decent picture. However, I knew several of the editors very well from my tenure as editor of Approach so I said I’d make call and see what the art of the possible might be. I proposed a flight of 3 Tomcats each outfitted with a different loadout (Bombs, Missiles and TARPS) to call attention to the newly adopted mission of Air-to-Ground for the community. They bit hard on that so I called the squadron to inform “Boomer”. I figured he had someone in the squadron to shoot the picture and asked when he thought they could set it up. He said “Whenever you can get here since you’re going to take the picture. That way I know it will be good enough!”

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One of the images I took used for article on Tomcat carrying bombs for a living.
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Two of my covers...including the one Boomer wanted
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One of the candidates for the cover that did not get selected, but was my favorite!
 
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zipmartin said:
View attachment 26291

Sunset in the Indian Ocean. I always loved sunsets and was always looking for the perfect pic. I just didn't have HeyJoe's expertise.
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Lookng good to me! Believe me, I had a steep learning curve and was lucky to be in a TARPS squadron with a superb mentor in our TARPS Mx Officer who was a new Warrant Officer that has been in Combat Camera, the best shooters in the Navy. He taught me everything I know and supplied me with loads of film to practice with.

I also had “Lites” Leenhouts as CAG LSO who flew with us routinely and we would fly together shooting pictures. He had a great rapport with Photo Lab and turned over the CAG PAO Job to me when he left to become AIRLANT LSO. His relief didn’t care a whit about PAO or pictures.

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Without their mentorship, doubtful I would have been able to pull off this sunrise in aftermath of raid on Libya during El Dorado Canyon. It is my favorite and was a varsity level shot due to lighting conditions.
 
zipmartin said:
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Another attempt to capture the perfect sunset. This was originally a slide but I think I need HeyJoe's nice scanner.
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Looks great to me. My scanner is nothing special (low end Best Buy model) but when a fellow author needed high end scans of a few of my images for a book, I was able to borrow the NAVAIR Aerial photographer’s high end Nikon archival level scanner. So I am using COVID stay at home to “stay home and scan” several thousand slides at higher resolution and use latest VueScan software that removes the ravages of time and dust.
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So I have been breaking out the Shoe Boxes and digging into the recesses yet again while I have access to the magic machine.
 
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