Hello, and thanks for visiting my website! At the age of 7, my mother encouraged my photography interests while my father bought me my first telescope. From there, years later, I combined those two interests to create photographs of sky events. Now with the inventions of amazing digital cameras, techniques, and software, images only dreamt of when I was young can be obtained today.
I have been blessed to work in the space industry, like my father did when I was young, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and several major observatories. Fast-forward from a freezing night at the telescope, plus needing to process huge film plates, in complete darkness and some 10-feet underneath the dome’s flooring, to today’s world of warm comfort at a desk with monitors and digital cameras attached to the telescopes which bring the images right to our computers! Ah, the comforts of a heating pad, reclining chair, and warm coffee make it so much easier to image our skies in this modern world.
Besides space, I began working assignments for Photo-Network, a company based in Orange County, who hired me for many years to photograph Military Air Shows and also allowed me access to some very special events. For instance: A Shuttle landing (Discovery), on runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, California; the very shuttle which took the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit back in April of 1990. Another event was the unveiling of the F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, the same month and year as the Shuttle landing. The great perks of that job was getting to meet the pilots and developing a rapport with them which led to being invited to photograph their last flights with their jets before retiring or relocated to another base. Nothing like standing next to a runway and have a fighter jet fly past you at 600 miles per hour and just 200 feet above your head!
I hope you enjoy or enjoyed the images here and may they inspire you to look at our planet and the heavens in a new and different way!
In His Service, James
I have been blessed to work in the space industry, like my father did when I was young, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and several major observatories. Fast-forward from a freezing night at the telescope, plus needing to process huge film plates, in complete darkness and some 10-feet underneath the dome’s flooring, to today’s world of warm comfort at a desk with monitors and digital cameras attached to the telescopes which bring the images right to our computers! Ah, the comforts of a heating pad, reclining chair, and warm coffee make it so much easier to image our skies in this modern world.
Besides space, I began working assignments for Photo-Network, a company based in Orange County, who hired me for many years to photograph Military Air Shows and also allowed me access to some very special events. For instance: A Shuttle landing (Discovery), on runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, California; the very shuttle which took the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit back in April of 1990. Another event was the unveiling of the F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, the same month and year as the Shuttle landing. The great perks of that job was getting to meet the pilots and developing a rapport with them which led to being invited to photograph their last flights with their jets before retiring or relocated to another base. Nothing like standing next to a runway and have a fighter jet fly past you at 600 miles per hour and just 200 feet above your head!
I hope you enjoy or enjoyed the images here and may they inspire you to look at our planet and the heavens in a new and different way!
In His Service, James