AV8NLVR's Blog

I'm really proud to say that one of my photos was published on the cover of a worldwide, large circulation magazine!  My photo of an Air Force F-22 Raptor wason the cover of the August edition of  "Air Forces Monthly",  a magazine devoted to the units and equipment of different countries' air forces around the world.  In this issue they did a cover story on the 192nd Fighter Wing at Langley AFB and the F-22 which coincides with the F-22 Demo Team's first visit overseas to an airshow in England.  This magazine is published by a company based in the U.K. (sold here in the states by Barnes & Noble), and they chose my picture from the hundreds that are online!

I have been taking pictures of aircraft for over 10 years now, and the majority of them (over 5,000 I think) I post on one of two websites - airliners.net and jetphotos.net, as well as my own sites.  From here,  they're seen by people all over the world - and people who need a photo for commercial use or who want prints email me.  I sell them.  It is like a hobby that occasionally pays!  The AFM sale is my 2nd highest amount sale,  just under what I got from "TIME" magazine back in 2002 for 2 photos that were used in a montage.  I have sold pictures to aerospace companies (Raytheon for example) as well as airlines.  Southwest Airlines bought one a couple years ago for which they paid me with one free roundtrip pass that was worth almost $600 at full walk-up fare.  Its definitely fun!  So far in 2008, I have sold more than any other year since I had my first sale in 2002 and more than the last 3 years combined.  I could probably sell more if I knew how to market them better.

The Raptor photo was one that I shot at EAA 2007.  Most of my photos of the last couple years tend to be military and air shows because I happen to live in a place whose airport has very little traffic and not very good spots to photograph from, not to mention the brutal weather for several months of the year:  The Frozen Tundra, Green Bay.  Although at times I do get to travel to places with much more photo-friendly airports.  Through some people I have become acquainted with though my photos I have also had the opportunity to go where few people get to go - behind the scenes, on the ramp at an airport, and also a couple of highly secured aircraft "boneyards".  This all give me a pretty wide variety of interesting shots.

The cover of AFM can be seen under my photos on this blog.  Its a really cool feeling to look at the huge magazine rack at Barnes & Noble with a gazillion different magazines and point to that one and say,  "I shot that".