Welcome!  I hope you enjoy my site. 

To begin with I'm in my early 40's and happily married. I have two children of my own and two step daughters. My obsession is photography as you may have guessed by my website. I'm comfortable shooting just about any type of scene except blood and gore.

MY GROWING UP:

Here are some boring details about my history in case you are insane enough to spend the time.  I am a native Coloradoan.  In fact, I was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on the first day of summer.  There I grew and learned to enjoy the dry climate and extreme seasons that are Colorado.  This is also where the ping-pong game of moving between my two primary states began.  I relocated to Texas for high school and graduated Alvin High in Houston as a teenager.  I moved back to Colorado after graduation and began work at the local Target department store on the crossing of Platte Avenue and Academy Boulevard.  I also held a second job cooking Pizza at Peter Piper's around Jet Wing back when that existed. There I learned how valuable Air Force life might be compared to a life working in the local area with little training and less opportunities.  I entered the Air Force in what was a harsh time economically for many in my hometown.  Upon entering the Air Force I was sent back again to Texas for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base.  After Lackland I returned home to Colorado, toward Denver for Basic Electronics and Circuitry School at Lowry Air Station.  Now tired of both Texas and Colorado I filled out my dream-sheet for the most remote corners of the earth, ready for new experiences.  I relocated near the Arctic Circle and began work at the 21st Component Repair Squadron (CRS) at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska.

MY MILITARY CAREER & RETIREMENT:

There began my military career. My first command was the 21st there in Alaska. While assigned to the 21st CRS I worked all versions of the F-15 fighter aircraft, all the way up to the nuclear capable “E” model.  Our F-15s used to fly along side of Russian bombers testing our responses to protecting coastal areas. The two sides would wave and take pictures of one another in friendly jestures while playing cat and mouse. The F-15 had never seen real action since its build in the 1960s. Then came my time working with it. Suddenly it was in Panama and the Gulf war of Southwest Asia doing some incredible missions. After an enjoyable eight years of homsteading but not deploying in Alaskan Air Command, the Wing Commander respectfully requested that I make room.  So I moved over for other Airman to hunt and fish in the wilderness of the “last frontier”.  What a great place Alaska turned out to be. I reassigned in 1994 to the First Fighter Wing at Langley AFB in Virginia.  There I continued repair on heads-up-displays, jamming equipment, radars, and all forms of computers for the F-15 “C” and “D” models.  These aircraft had the high-tempo responsibility of patrolling Southwest Asia as well.  The busy wing in Virginia made the years go by very quickly with dozens of operational readiness inspections, chemical warfare exercises, and deployment opportunities.  Doesn’t that sound fun?

I then volunteered for the retraining program and chose Imagery Analyst as my new career field.  This fit well with my love of pictures!  I reassigned to Goodfellow AFB in Texas for six months of training.  I then returned to Langley AFB as a certified analyst and moved across the same base to my new job.   There I headed up an Imagery team, database team, and a beta-testing team.  My beta-testing team was responsible for signing the picture database called IPL2.0 into service.  This "Imagery Product Library" had potential but wasn't ready for prime time. Our focus was a success after a couple years of demanding rework on the first un-usable version of IPL.  My database team and I scripted UNIX code that streamlined the building’s data flow for years to follow.  My team was lauded for providing maps and information usable in the security of VIP’s watched over by government services during local visits.  After applying for overseas assignments, I was reassigned to the United Kingdom.  I served two years in the UK.  There I led an Imagery team, a Database team, and became honored as primary training manager for over 100 military folks.  Lastly, I received my dream job in Colorado Springs to finish my military career.  At Schriever Air Force Base, I led an assessment team for future imaging technology and new concepts.  As a team we got to exercise many cool pieces of aircraft hardware and for a short time even played with NASA's own Hyperion EO-1 satellite. My team there was the most capable, creative, and educated of my career and was nominated for NASA's Rotary National Award in Space Achievements.  Finally I retired from the military! As a civilian I work on communications systems and occasionally aircraft cameras depending upon the job. I've found working on cameras and communications systems something I enjoy that mixes my talents. I believe you will agree the Southwest part of the United States is an attractive area after you view some of my recent images.  Overall what you’ve probably learned from all this is that I love pictures and communicating visually!  Whether the pictures are photographs, drawings, or other artwork they just never seem to get old.

MY ART INFLUENCES:

My personality as you already know gravitates toward images and artwork. My entire site is based around visualizing.  When I was younger began my love of the classic artists like Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Rafael, Rene Magritte and others of later periods.  They inspired me.  The classics are so incredible and life-like.  My beginning in art was specifically a playful extension of the technology of that time period.  However, deep down it was my own absolute need for expression and enjoyment; that drove my works seen today.  I run into people all the time who have this deep need for expression.  These are artists because they feel the need to work on art even when that art isn’t popular.  To me that persistence is the bottom-line on the definition of artist.  Let’s face it; we humans try with only some success to recreate portions of the beauty already found on God’s canvas called the universe.

Like many, I am always growing and it feels good to mature as an artist regardless of how slow that happens.  I used to sketch space ships and creatures when I was young and well before computers could do this easily.  Later I worked in aircraft avionics and all of the computers and other electronics that accompanied that particular career field really motivated me.  I soon combined my electronics and art curiosities to become more of a computer artist as many have.  This took up much less physical space at home and the colors did not emit fumes as paint did.  What seemed even nicer were the many copies available with little to no degradation. 

My current interests are more scientific in nature as I research the spectral properties of wavelengths making pictures.  This brings out the meaning in the digital numbers and the passion they portray when recorded.  I love rendering too.  Tracing light really makes you consider the items in the images and how they affect one another.  The subject matters in my art are the typical ones that seem to draw out the passion in people such as beautiful people, religions, wars, loves, and greed.  As an observation, I found most of us males enjoyed drawing power objects like vehicles and swords.  I noticed that many females on the other hand tended to choose topics of color, detail, and interaction.  This was intriguing and years ago, I realized my own art was saturated by male dominant themes.  A viewer can only wade through so many skulls, spaceships, and monster trucks.  Since my art is my relaxation and furthering thought, I wanted to expand my topics and force myself out of my comfort zone.  I now try to create images with people topics and different approaches.  For me, this was harder than first imagined in developing more themes that are neutral by taste and gender.  I can now say I have attempted to create more varied topics and brighter colors.  I found them enjoyable to create and still do.  Fantasy themes with warriors, swords, and vehicles still abound in my pieces, but hopefully to a more balanced state. Thanks for spending the time and enjoy my site. Take care of yourself and treat your senses to some amazing visuals!

--Tracy Lee Rose