I am working on portraits of veterans for a special show we will be doing in cooperation with the Graphic Arts program at City College. The show, designed to honor local and regional veterans and consisting of special portraits along with their stories and memorabilia is the brain child of Candice Lopez, lead faculty of the Graphic Arts Program. I’m honored to have been asked to participate by producing the portraits.
Each will be 20″ x 30″ and in B&W. It has been a pleasure shooting these and meeting these real heroes who were willing to risk all for their country. I have a little more than half of them shot but yesterday was privileged to photograph 1LT James Reily Sr who was a B-24 Bombadier in WWII.
Shot down and captured he was a Prisoner of War shuttled through 3 different POW camps until the liberation by elements of Patton’s 3rd Army on its push through Germany. I’ve been trying to edit them in order but couldn’t stand it and tackled Mr. Reid’s shot out of line and wanted to show it to you.
WWII veteran James Reily Sr. He was a B-24 bombadier who was shot down and captured spending the end of the war in a German POW camp. The portrait made with a Canon 5DSr and Canon 85mm f1.8 lens.
Mr. Reily now continues to serve by talking with visitors on the USS Midway at its dock in San Diego. The show will open November 10 in the Luxe Gallery on the 5th floor of the CTC “V” building and be up through the end of the semester. As it gets nearer I’ll have more data to post here.
ADDENDUM: I immediately got requests for lighting plots and to see more of the photos. I do not want to give away the surprise for the veterans who will see the show for the first time on opening night (Nov 10). After that I will post some more examples and diagrams.
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The endangered species is arts and creative subject classes in the Community College System in California. Those were the words of our Department Chair upon returning from a meeting to do discuss new regulations coming down at us. We are now asked to make our classes 35 students each, no repeats for any reason including no second independent study class for anyone, solid unchangeable education plans are now mandated for students or they go to the bottom of the registration list, and “completions” meaning degrees and transfers to 4-yr schools are now the criteria for program success.
Maybe that works in traditional topics such as math, history, science, etc., but it is fatally flawed for vocational preparatory courses like ours. It will be interesting to see where this will end up over the next year. I predict it will kill our enrollment, especially combined with new public perceptions about photography generally… but time alone will tell.
Stay tuned…
Travels with Rocinante 
Great portrait of 1Lt Reily. The leather bomber jacket and USA flag backdrop are perfect. B&W was the right choice – color would not have had the same impact. Would love to see the lighting diagram.
When I do the post on the show I may show a couple of the lighting plots. I just wanted to get this one out. some of the color ones are really strong but mixing them was not a good plan to me so settlede on B&W for all.