For over fifteen years I've been a participating artist with the United States Air Force Art Program.

The program was created to document the story of the Air Force through art and has been in place since the early fifties. Air Force Artists are invited to spend time with units from around the world and experience first hand the various mission's of the Air Force.

Taking photographs are an important element to these trips. Most of the photos I take are pieces and parts of aircraft that I later use as reference for my paintings. However, I also try to capture the atmosphere and mood of the location or Unit. These photos are from a trip to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi where The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, known as the Hurricane Hunters, are stationed.

The stormy backdrops of many of the photos adds drama to the images and are certainly appropriate for an aircraft whose job it is to fly into hurricanes! Tragically, less then a year later, Hurricane Katrina would devastate the Biloxi, Mississippi area. Kessler suffered almost $1 billion in damages but is back in operations today.

All of these photos were taken with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel with a 24mm and 70-300mm zoom lens. For the ultimate in aviation photos check out Airliners.net

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There's something about the wide sweeping view of a panoramic scene that gives an image of drama and grandeur. Panoramic photography has been around for a long time. My Great Grandfather was a professional photographer (Circa 1900) and took panoramic photos in Upstate New York.

For 40 years, the Kodak Colorama in New York's Grand Central Terminal stood as a landmark for photography and the company. The Colorama's were 18 feet high and 36 feet wide! The first Colorama's were captured with an 8X10 view camera.

Today I make panoramic photos with my digital camera. The Kodak V570 has a built in feature that "stitches" three images together automatically. After each shot, a small slice of the previous shot stays on the display and all you do is line up the past image slice with the next shot. When you're done the camera runs an algorithm that aligns all three images into one seamless panoramic picture. It's very cool and fun to play with.

Get creative and take three successive images that are not panoramic and see how they get stitched together.

I think my Great Grandfather would be amazed.

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