Many days my email inbox is full of press releases. Normally I skip over a lot of them since I always have that annoying message that my inbox is over the size limit. However, this one caught my eye. The Liberty Belle, a World War II-era B-17 bomber, would be visiting the Rocky Mountain Metro Airport in Broomfield. I immediatly called the contact and requested two seats. My motto: "Always set up the story first, then ask your editor for permission."
Needless to say, after we confirmed our seats a reporter and I rounded up four WWII vets who served as crew members on the B-17's. We interviewed them and I took some portraits. I also gathered a lot of audio to put together a multimedia slideshow. (See it here.) My second passion in life, next to photography, is history. The only thing I regret is that I could not share their complete stories with the masses.
What we did get to do, however, was package portions of their stories with another story about the Liberty Belle's visit to our area. I feel so lucky to see and experience great things, like looking out of the glass nose of a B-17 thousands of feet above the earth or sticking my head and camera out of the "convertible top." (Which, by the way, is kinda like riding a motorcycle on the freeway, but way more fun.)
But the real highlight of this assignment was meeting living heroes willing to share their stories. And I even got my photo taken next to "The Flying Fortress."
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