Shared Images

"Tiger Woods."
- Stuart Appleby, when asked what he would have to shoot to win the PGA Campionship at Vahalla in 2000.

I hear there's traffic for miles!
(This is actually in N. Illinois along Hwy 12)

Attached is a photo of a perfect sonic boom.
Through the viewfinder of his camera, Ensign John Gay could see the fighter plane drop from the sky heading toward the port side of the aircraft carrier Constellation. At 1,000 feet, the pilot drops the F/A-18C Hornet to increase his speed to 750 mph, vapor flickering off the curved surfaces of the plane. In the precise moment a cloud in the shape of a farm-fresh egg forms around the Hornet 200 yards from the carrier, its engines rippling the Pacific Ocean just 75 feet below, Gay hears an explosion and snaps his camera shutter once. "I clicked the same time I heard the boom, and I knew I had it," Gay said.

What he had was a technically meticulous depiction of the sound barrier being broken July 7, 1999, somewhere on the Pacific between Hawaii and Japan. Sports Illustrated, Brills Content and Life ran the photo. The photo recently took first prize in the science and technology division in the World Press Photo 2000 contest, which drew more than 42,000 entries worldwide. "All of a sudden, in the last few days, I've been getting calls from everywhere about it again. It's kind of neat," he said, in a telephone interview from his station in Virginia Beach, Va.

A naval veteran of 12 years, Gay, 38, manages a crew of eight assigned to take intelligence photographs from the high-tech belly of an F-14 Tomcat, the fastest fighter in the U.S. Navy. In July, Gay had been part of a Joint Task Force exercise as the Constellation made its way to Japan. Gay selected his Nikon 90 S, one of the five 35 mm cameras he owns. He set his 80-300 mm zoom lens on 300 mm, set his shutter speed at 1/1000 of a second with an aperture setting of F5.6. "I put it on full manual, focus and exposure," Gay said. "I tell young photographers who are into automatic everything, you aren't going to get that shot on auto. The plane is too fast. The camera can't keep up."

At sea level a plane must exceed 741 mph to break the sound barrier, or the speed at which sound travels. The change in pressure as the plane outruns all of the pressure and sound waves in front of it is heard on the ground as an explosion or sonic boom. The pressure change condenses the water in the air as the jet passes these waves. Altitude, wind speed, humidity, the shape and trajectory of the plane-all of these affect the breaking of this barrier. The slightest drag or atmospheric pull on the plane shatters the vapor oval like fireworks as the plane passes through. He said everything on July 7 was perfect. "You see this vapor flicker around the plane that gets bigger and bigger. You get this loud boom, and it's instantaneous. The vapor cloud is there, and then it's not there. It's the coolest thing you have ever seen.

The Dumbest Man on Earth
This picture is real - not doctored in anyway - and was taken last week by a Transportation Supervisor for a company that delivers building materials for 84 Lumber. When he saw it in the parking lot of IHOP, he went and bought a camera to take pictures.

The car is still running, as can be witnessed by the exhaust. A woman is either asleep or otherwise out in the front seat passenger side. The guy driving it was jogging up and down on Rt. 925. (in the background). Witnesses said their physical state was OTHER than normal. The driver finally came back after the police were called, and was found crouched behind the rear of the car, attempting to cut the twine around the load! Luckily, the police stopped him and had the load removed. The materials were loaded at Home Depot. Their store manager said they had the customer sign a waiver. While the plywood and 2X4s are fairly obvious, what you can't see is the back seat, which contains -- are you ready for this? -- 10 bags of concrete @ 80 lbs. each. They estimated the load weight at 3000 lbs. Both back tires exploded, the wheels bent and the back shocks were driven through the floorboard. The car, with FL plates (naturally), was headed for Annapolis, where the couple presumably planned to build a new house in which to smoke their crack.

Ruth Orkin's American Girl In Italy, 1951
I actually have never had this sent to me, but it is one of the photographs I always liked. It's been "overdone" now and posters are everywhere, but each face within the photo just captures so much... That's what photography is all about. Hats off to Ruth Orkin.

Three horses finish in a dead-heat for second place on December 7, 1990 at the Meadowlands racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J. Although the mirror image on the left makes it appear as though it's a five-horse tie, Bluestrum, What About Bob and George Burns actually hit the wire at exactly the same time. AP Photo.

"Get away from the hustle and bustle of city-life as we welcome you to the breathtaking Tokyo Water Park where you can wash away the pressure and stress of the overcrowded city and relax with your friends in the soothing enjoyment of sun, fun and splashing"

Here's a good photo of the moon moving in front of Saturn in December, 2001 - the second time in that month that occurred. The photo was supposedly taken by an amateur photographer using a 6" telescope in St. Paul, MN.

*All messages above have come to me from various public sources through email over the past few years. They can, and should be, freely distributed and shared with friends of yours. I claim no responsibility for the opinions, facts, or class of the messages and images contained above.
Created 5/00; Last updated January 11, 2002; v2.0.