Some minor details...

One of the stations at our little mock wedding was the detail shots.

The rings aren't quite a minor detail though! They are a major detail!

Getting ready

Getting the bride ready for the ceremony.

Engaged!

My friend Pam and I went up to Pasadena for a wedding shoot. It really wasn't a real wedding, but a staged one for photographers to go learn how to shoot them, and to get practice.

There were six stations, starting with engagement pictures.

These two had fun posing for us,

but most of the pics I took were of them kissing.

It was a great learning experience, but not so easy to get the right angle with 9 other photographers shooting at the same time.

These were my favorites of this couple.

Chow!

Feeding 2000+ people on board the ship isn't easy. That number goes closer to 5000 when the airwing comes aboard and they deploy. Can you imagine having to fix 5000 cinnamon rolls? YIKES! We ate breakfast in the main mess hall. I'll just say that if I was served this breakfast each day, I'd lose weight.

We had breakfast with these cute young Marines from Miramar. Their squadron was flying out to teh boat to do carrier qualifications as part of their training. These guys were here to fix the airplanes if any of them needed minor repairs.

Lunch was in teh Officer's Mess. It was a bit better than breakfast.

Dinner was yummy though. I was too hungry to get more pictures than this.

Then there was a trip to the bakery. These gals were so excited to meet us as they rarely get a group of just women coming through. In fact, we were running late so our tour guide was ging to skip this part, and had called them to let them know. After much protest, we were back on and the visit to the weapon's deck was cut short. We all decided that it was much more fun for us to see the desserts than the bombs anyway!

Plus, we got to sample the dessets too! They were de-lish!

A City at Sea

The carrier is really just like a floating city.

There is a store,

a library,
a chapel,

even with beautiful stained glass,

and a hospital complete with an ICU. There was even a Starbucks, but we didn't make it to that end of the boat. One thing missing is a spa. All those stairwells sure are hard on the feet!

Night Ops

We went back out to watch the night operations. Since we didn't want to blind any of the pilots, flash photography wasn't allowed. So I cranked up the ISO and opened the shutter,

but most pictures were still blurry.

A tripod wouldn't have helped either since the boat moves and vibrates, especially when one of these airplanes slams onto the deck.

When they are landing on the carrier deck, the pilots give it full power just in case they don't catch the wire. That way they will have enough speed to take off again.

Like this guy. He missed the wire, and will have to go around and try again. All those sparks are from the tail hook sliding across the deck. Pretty spectacular to watch!

From the Captain's roost

The Captain of the ship can sit in his office and watch the flight ops on the deck. How would you like a window view like this from your office? Of course you would have to not see your family for at least 6 months at a time.
And yes, those wings do fold up like that. Makes storing and moving all those airplanes a little bit easier.

All is quiet with carrier qualifications over for the day. It will start up again at night.

Since no jets are screaming across the deck, it's time for a FOD walk.

FOD stands for Foreign Object Damage. Every available person walks the length of the deck looking for anything that can be sucked down a jet engine, as this can cause damage to the engines and may put lives in danger. Remember Captain Sullenburger landing his plane in the Hudson River? They are trying to avoid any planes in the Pacific.