Originally posted by Westy:
Wonderful picture! Thank you very much Widewing.
-Westy
Lest anyone think this is an original WWII vintage photo, it's not. Compare the next two photos to see where it came from.
The first photo is the original, shot over southern California in the summer of 1998. This is the only flyable small mouth P-40 in existance. It was rebuilt from a wreck hauled out of the Russian woods. It was hastily painted in the colors of Flying Tiger Erik Shilling. There were several problems that I rectified in the retouched image. The prop spinner was painted red, which it was not on the original aircraft. They did not get the colors exactly correct, so I adjusted then to match proper RAF paints. The pilot is wearing a modern headset, which I replaced with a vintage leather flying helmet. You might notice that the tail wheel doors were not properly rigged and did not fully close. I closed them. Then, I adjusted the backgound colors to represent Burma. This was done by shading the cloud shadows a dark green, to appear as dense foliage. I dropped in two repainted clones of the aircraft, each with its own unique camo pattern and shark mouth, just like the actual aircraft. There are many other minor enhancements to the image that are rather hard to detect. I also matched the squadron numbers to the camp pattern based upon existing photos. All in all, it makes for a dramatic, if utterly fraudulent photo. Gentlemen, there isn't much you can't do to a photo with Adobe Photoshop......
The story of this rebuilt P-40 can be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/quarters/9485/P-40C.html My regards,
Widewing
