Introductions

[F-16_fixer]

Hello everyone!  My name is Chris from Tucson and as you can tell from my screen name I work on F-16's.  I work out of the Air National Guard base at TIA.  I was referred here from the Canon Forums  by Jay "flyingphotog"  I'm really looking forward to meeting some of you and learning a little about aviation photography.  I shoot with a Canon and have really been learning a lot lately about photography.  So I figured I would combine my new found love of photography with my life long passion of aviation.

-Chris

[Paul Dumm]

Chris, Welcome.
Yes you have, more then you will every know

[Ned Harris]

Hi Chris: Welcome to AzAP. There are a few of us in Tucson and we look forward to meeting you soon.

[Joe Copalman]

Welcome aboard Chris.  Tucson is really an aviation photography Mecca, you'll have no shortage of subjects to practice on down there.  Looking forward to meeting you as well.

[F-16_fixer]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome.  Joe I got your email and replied to it. 

[jslugman]

Welcome Chris, hopefully we'll cross paths soon.

[Stephen Marshall]

Well hello there!

I was introduced to the forum by FlyingPhotog over on POTN after his Coolidge fly-in photos.

So a little about myself? Don't mind if I do!

I was born in Mass. but moved to Tucson when I was 7. I've been really interested in photography for about 4 years now and got my first DSLR about 2 years ago. Since then I've graduated High School and moved on to Arizona State University studying Air Traffic Control. I live on the Poly campus about 1/2 mile from KIWA 12R's centerline.

I look forward to getting to know you all and sharing any photos I may gather!

-Stephen

[jslugman]

Welcome Stephen!

[Joe Copalman]

Welcome Stephen!

Several of us are Willie regulars, so we'll probably see you out there.

Also - congrats on the POTM nomination!  Three posts and already making an impact.  Looking forward to more.

[Stephen Marshall]

I got nominated? Wow... didn't see that one coming! Quite exciting!

Thanks for the welcome!  Will have to let me know when your out here next, would like to meet some of the members.

[Joel Hamm]

Hope I am doing this right. I do not post things on fourums very often. Just throwing some information out there about my self. I am from Virginia and in the USAF nine years now. I am an A-10 crew chief for most of my career(one year on the U-2). I did some time in Kuwait, Afghanistan and South Korea. I was hired to the A-10 West Demo Team in 2007 and have been a member since. I was drawn to aviation photography through this exposure to so many aircraft. I have been blessed with being able to go to many airshows: Reno, Oshkosh, Midland, Chino etc... and got to see some very cool and rare things. I shoot with a Canon Rebel XSI and 70-300MM IS for two years now so I would like to think I have atleast some basics down, but I have not had any formal classes and little "on the job training". I am not really a book learner I am a tactile learner so I have to be shown and do hands on work. I also need to be spun up in the post picture process of editing and also want to try my hand at some HDR work. You can find me on Fencecheck and ASB as hammsterdam1943 but I have not posted any of my work. Maybe if I get confident enough I can have my own website one day. Just for gee whiz I am also looking for some new or used canon lenses so I can broaden my range and experiment with other lenses if anyone is interested. Thanks for making me feel welcome with the e-mails fellas I feel very welcome here.

[F-16_fixer]

Welcome Joel!  I was an A-10 crew chief for 6 years out at DM.  I was in the 358th for two then went to Osan for a year and came back and I was in the 357th.  Now I'm over at the guard base as an F-16 crew chief.  Nice to have you on board!  Looking forward to meeting you.  And if you need help with post processing just let me know and I'll teach you whatever I've learned so far.

[Paul Dumm]

Welcome Joel, You come in at a great time as March is HELL month as there is something big each weekend. Just keep checking the forms and see who going to be where, we'll all here to help each other.

[John B.]

I just discovered this thread and I figured I should post something because I lurk frequently and post every once in a while....  Plus, I have met a few of you and I will likely meet more of you either down here or up north in Casa Grande, Phoenix, etc.

I am the Collections Registrar at Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson.  Essentially, I work mostly with cataloguing small artifacts like photographs, uniforms, flight gear, patches, etc.  Occasionally I drift over towards archival materials (personal records and documents) but that is a little bit out of my area of responsibility.  I occasionally work with the really large artifacts that we have, but I am not usually out hammering sheet metal or anything like that.  I tend to deal with the paperwork issues or trying to figure out where an airframe has been or what it did.

My photography is purely amateur and I actually enjoy looking at what others have taken as much as looking at my own.  I like seeing what other people have seen and where they saw it, etc. (Although, I am not a spotter--I just like the pretty pictures )

So, hopefully I'll bump in to some of you--perhaps at the "guardrail" or at one of the many upcoming events in the hectic month of March! 

Cheers.

[radiokaos]

Small world I grew up in Glenview and went to GBN for a few years.  I miss that base.

Figured I should probably put something up here.

I spent the first 8 years of my life in a neighborhood at the north end of the runway at Palwaukee Municipal Airport in Wheeling, Illinois and woke up every morning to the sound of Learjets and Cessnas buzzing by outside my window.  A few miles away was NAS Glenview, where the USMCR KC-130s and USNR P-3s were my first exposure to military aviation.  What fascinated me the most as a kid was the F-104 that used to be suspended from the ceiling of the Museum of Science and Industry.  (It's now hanging from the ceiling of an aviation museum in Kansas). 

While I've been a lifelong aviation enthusiast, I am new to aviation photography, picking it up in May of 2008.  I've learned A LOT since then and am looking forward to learning more.  Prior to photography, I did quite a bit of work as a historian, lecturing on the history of OV-10 Bronco backseat personnel at the OV-10 Bronco Museum in Fort Worth, contributing an aircraft history on OV-10D BuNo 155494 to the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum, donating some flight test footage I had in my personal archive to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, working on a continuing audio history project in which I digitize and restore cockpit audio recordings submitted to me by veteran combat pilots, and having a case study I wrote on the acquisition of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet published as an appendix to Col. Walt Boyne's Operation Iraqi Freedom: What Went Right, What Went Wrong, and Why back in late 2003.  While photography has taken the front seat in terms of my passion, I look forward to continued projects in aerospace history when and where time allows. 

As far as photography goes, I'll shoot anything that flies.  My preference, however, is for military aircraft under their own power, whether they are starting up, taxiing, taking off, landing, or just flying by.  I feel blessed to live in a state that offers such a diverse richness of opportunities to photograph aircraft in these various states and I look forward to taking advantage of it as much as I can.