Two page spread in the Air Forces Monthly special issue on US Navy Air Power featuring two VFC-111 Sun Downers F-5Ns. Its been out for a bit now in the UK and a bit spotty here and there in the US, but it just appeared at the local newsstand.
Original Image
Well, I know I'm not the most prolific of bloggers. To tell the truth I'm still getting the hang of it, but things are happening, good things, and I really need to focus on getting more of a handle on this.
I do have some good news on the aviation photography front. First is the news that my image of Gypsy 206 grabbing the wire on USS Truman has been selected for the cover of The Hook magazine's Fall 2009 issue. Many of you know how I feel about the Tailhook Association so this is a great honor for me. This is also my second cover for them.
VS-22's final days as the last active duty S-3 Viking squadron in the US Navy. As many of you know, the S-3 and the Viking Community are very near and dear to my heart. Over the years I worked closely with Sea Control Wing at NAS Jax and I am proud to call many of those whom I worked with my friends today. My first magazine cover was a shot of an S-3 Viking. So was my second. Gary does a fine job of bringing the story of the Vidars, as VS-22 was sometimes known, to the reader. It also features some pretty cool photos taken by yours truly including the one on the opening spread as seen below.
Something that a lot of people don't know about me is that I'm a bit of a closet naturalist. I grew up in the great state of Tennessee and remember going to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park often, sometimes every other weekend, to just explore and of course photograph what I saw. One of the places I loved to go was the Sugarlands Visitor Center as you entered the park from Gatlinburg. It was full of all kinds of fascinating information, exhibits and great people who helped expand that information. As a kid, I soaked it up like a sponge. I figured I was quite lucky to have this all in my "backyard." Well now I'm lucky once again.
Living here in Lakeland for years, I have often wanted to go out and see some of the landscape and wildlife of what in your mind's eye you think of as Florida. No, I don't mean Cinderella's Castle and the surrounding flowerbeds or the tourists getting their drink on in downtown Orlando. I mean the real Florida without high rises, the theme parks and the tourist traps. The jungle without the concrete. The Florida of the Creek and Seminole nations as the Spanish found it in the 1500s. Well low and behold, maybe if I took my head out of the computer a bit more often I would have found it sooner because it was right under my nose the whole time. 
Located on State Road 540 is the Circle B Bar Nature Reserve. Its 1,267 acres of prime Florida wetlands and home to countless species of wildlife. At the visitors' entrance is the Polk's Nature Discovery Center, a Sugarlands like three building complex with classrooms and exhibits which opened in 2008. I first visited the Nature Center a couple weeks ago when I met my good friend and fellow photographer Reinier there to judge the Polk County Camera Club portfolios. I immediately fell in love with the place and I didn't even venture out onto the trails! To remedy that, my brother and I decided to go there this past Friday and do a bit of exploring.
miles of trails through the various landscapes crammed into this unique and special place, birdwatchers, educators, naturalists, and photographers are treated to some of the greatest imagination fueling vistas one is least likely to expect in the shadow of Orlando and Tampa. To me the Cypress swamp was the most moving as I alternately thought of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and images of Ponce de Leon pushing through looking for the Fountain of Youth. The oak hamlets were just as impressive with their boughs crookedly reaching skyward.
