Blast From The Past – Fall 1992 – A shot of me doing what I love at the main train station in Lepzig, East Germany during an photo assignment in the area after the fall of the Eastern Block walls and fences. Here I’m shooting with a Fuji 6X17cm panoramic 120 film camera. Photo was shot by my good friend Jose Lopez Jr.

Blast From The Past – January 8, 2013 – Even after 17 years of covering sports at the Messenger Newspaper, I really don’t get into sports that much and that’s probably why I think I made some really decent sports photos over the years, because I concentrated more on the picture than getting wrapped up in the moment.

Here we find Madisonville-North Hopkins’ Drew Dodds as he comes up for air during the breaststroke in the boys 200-yard individual medley event on that Tuesday night in 2013 at the Hopkins County Family YMCA in Madisonville. Dodds won his heat with a time of 2:18.80. – Photo by Jim Pearson, The Messenger Newspaper

Blast From The Past – Fall 1987 – One of my favorite places to photograph trains in all of Europe was probably the Main train station in downtown Frankfurt, West Germany. Today of course it’s just Germany, but when I lived there and traveled back to Germany on various photo assignments, it was my favorite off duty location for photographing trains. The station was and still his huge and if I recall correctly it had 24 platforms all under one roof! Can’t say about today, but back then you could wander around the station and out to the end of any platform and photograph the day to day operation of the station and out into the yard. It was a railfans dream locaiton, at leas it was for this one.

According to Wikipedia: Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof (German for Frankfurt (Main) main station), often abbreviated as Frankfurt (Main) Hbf and sometimes translated as Frankfurt central station, is the busiest railway station in Frankfurt, Germany. The affix “Main” comes from the city’s full name, Frankfurt am Main (“Frankfurt on the Main”). Because of its location in the middle of Germany and usage as a transport hub for long and short distance travelling, Deutsche Bahn refers to it as the most important station in Germany.

The station was built by the contractor Philipp Holzmann with construction starting in 1883. The Central-Bahnhof Frankfurt was finally opened on 18 August 1888. Right on the evening of the opening day, a train ran over the buffer stop and the locomotive was damaged. Over the course of the next few years, the area to the east of the new station, the Bahnhofsviertel, was built; it was completed around 1900. Until the completion of Leipzig Hauptbahnhof in 1915, Frankfurt station was the largest in Europe.

As of today (2014), the 24 platforms with 26 tracks on one level probably make it the world’s largest one-level railway hall.

Blast From The Past – Summer 1994 – This shot of Guards at Heroes Square in Budapest, Hungary, was taken on one of my trips taken there during Operation Deny Flight, which was a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operation that began on 12 April 1993 as the enforcement of a United Nations (UN) no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Wikipedia: Heroes Square is one of the major squares in Budapest, Hungary, noted for its iconic statue complex featuring the Seven chieftains of the Magyars and other important Hungarian national leaders, as well as the Memorial Stone of Heroes, often erroneously referred as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The square lies at the outbound end of Andrássy Avenue next to City Park (Városliget). It hosts the Museum of Fine Arts and the Műcsarnok. The square has played an important part in contemporary Hungarian history and has been a host to many political events, such as the reburial of Imre Nagy in 1989.

Blast From The Past – Mid 1980’s – I can’t recall the exact year this photo was made at this time. A bit more research will nail it down though. This is my friend Norm Grant and his son Dale Grant at the Colorado Railway Museum at Golden, Colorado. Norm, his wife Gloria and Dale (my Godson) were avid volunteers at the Museum for many years and they helped out on firing and running Rio Grand 346.

I have always been interested in photographing trains, but I attribute Norm and Dale as the ones that fired up that passion to what it is today! We were all stationed together at Rhein Main Air Base in West Germany for three years and we chased and photographed trains around West Germany and other areas of Europe during that time. When I was reassigned to the states in 1981 and Norm left the service we have continued to be family over the years and meet up a various places for visits and railfan trips. Although Norm has left this world for a better place, his son continues today as an engineer for the BNSF Railway.

According to Wikipedia: The Colorado Railroad Museum is a non-profit railroad museum. The museum is located on 15 acres at a point where Clear Creek flows between North and South Table Mountains in Golden, Colorado.

The museum was established in 1959 to preserve a record of Colorado’s flamboyant railroad era, particularly the state’s pioneering narrow gauge mountain railroads.

The museum building is a replica of an 1880s-style railroad depot. Exhibits feature original photographs by pioneer photographers such as William Henry Jackson and Louis Charles McClure, as well as paintings by Howard L Fogg, Otto Kuhler, Ted Rose and other artists. Locomotives and railroad cars modeled in the one inch scale by Herb Votaw are also displayed. A bay window contains a reconstructed depot telegrapher’s office, complete with a working telegraph sounder.

The lower level of the museum building contains an exhibition hall which features seasonal and traveling displays on railroading history. The lower level also contains the Denver HO Model Railroad Club’s “Denver and Western” operating HO and HOn3 scale model train layout that represent Colorado’s rail history in miniature.

The Robert W. Richardson Library houses over 10,000 rare historic photographs, Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway no 683 was built in 1890 by the Baldwin locomotive works and spent much of his time, pulling coal trains in the eastern United States it was donated to the Colorado Railroad Museum in July 9th 1982.

Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad no 346 was built in July 1881 by the Baldwin locomotive Works in Philadelphia Pennsylvania does 346 has its very own class sister the locomotive number 318.

Blast From The Past – I know this KC-10 air to air photo was shot along the coast of California, but can’t recall the exact date. I can say that it’s indicative of some of the many missions I flew over my 24 years in the Air Force. Part of my job during those years was to photograph the many different types of aircraft as they performed their missions.

Sometimes this involved flying backseat in a fighter jet, but most times it was shooting from the back ramp of another jet or even prop plane while tethered by a harness in the event there was severe turbulence and the plane suddenly dropped or shook. Fortunately I always stayed inside the plane untill it reached the ground!!

Blast From The Past – January 6, 2013 – Working for 17 years as a photojournalist for The Messenger Newspaper here in Madisonville, Ky had me covering a lot of interesting assignments and Brian T. was one of those folks!

Brian T. was heading down North Main Street pulling a cross on this Sunday as he headed home from being baptized at Christ View Fellowship Church in Madisonville. Brian didn’t want his last name used as he wants all the glory of his actions to go to God. He thinks he’s covered about 30 miles so far carrying his cross. – Photo by Jim Pearson, The Messenger Newspaper, Madisonville, Ky

Blast From The Past – March 23, 2010 – Madisonville-North Hopkins High Schools Jordan Wilson clears a high hurdle during Maroons opening track meet in 2010, with Maarten Adams hot on his heels. – Photography by Jim Pearson/The Messenger Newspaper

Blast From The Past – Fall, 1980 – Here we find my on assignment taking information in the field for a caption during a military exercise in Germany called Reforger. Over the years I was part of the Combat Camera team that covered this annual exercise. The acronym stands for Return of Forces to Europe and involved the joint participation by many countries.

According to Wikipedia: Exercise Campaign Reforger (from return of forces to Germany) was an annual exercise and campaign conducted, during the Cold War, by NATO. The exercise was intended to ensure that NATO had the ability to quickly deploy forces to West Germany in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. Although most troops deployed were from the United States, the operation also involved a substantial number of troops from other NATO countries including Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Reforger exercise itself was first conceived in 1967. During the ongoing Vietnam War, the President Lyndon Johnson administration announced plans to withdraw approximately two divisions from Europe in 1968. As a demonstration of its continuing commitment to the defense of NATO and to illustrate its capability of rapid reinforcement, a large scale force deployment was planned that would deploy a division or more to West Germany in a regular annual exercise.

The first such exercise was conducted beginning on 6 January 1969. These exercises continued annually past the end of the Cold War, except for the year 1989, until 1993. Reforger 1975 marked the operational presence of the United States Marine Corps in Europe for the first time since World War I when the 2nd Marine Division’s 32nd Marine Amphibious Unit (32nd MAU) was deployed from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as part of that exercise. Reforger 1988 was billed as the largest European ground maneuver since the end of World War II as 125,000 troops were deployed.

Reforger was not merely a show of force—in the event of a conflict, it would be the actual plan to strengthen the NATO presence in Europe. In that instance, it would have been referred to as Operation Reforger. Important components in Reforger included the Military Airlift Command, the Military Sealift Command, and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.

The U.S. Army also increased its rapid-reinforcement capability by prepositioning huge stocks of equipment and supplies in Europe at POMCUS sites. The maintenance of this equipment has provided extensive on-the-job training to reserve-component support units.

Blast From The Past – Summer, 1999 – Those were the days! Here I’m working on shooting on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway with my 8X20″ panoramic view camera somewhere around Chama, New Mexico with my godson Dale Grant. He, his dad Norm and good friend Jose Lopez Jr. all met up at Chama for a weekend of chasing the trains.

It was an interesting camera and one of several pan cameras I’ve owned over the years during the film days. The only one I still have left is a 4×10″ Alt View, built by Patrick Alt in Los Angeles, California at the time. Now with the scarcity of film and processing chemicals it too may go up for sale here before long. Now it’s just a nice display piece as I no longer even have a darkroom setup here at home.

I was, like many, was brought up in the film age of photography and I attribute my “seeing” to what I learned over the years of shooting film and having to know what my photo was going to look like as I shot it without looking at it right afterwards, as we do today with digital.

I have to admit we have come a long way from film since the first digital cameras I used in the Air Force back in the late 1970s. In some ways it’s much better and in others not so much, but either way, shooting film I feel has made me “see” pictures better when I’m out shooting digital today.

Blast From The Past – February 2, 1985 – A High angle close-up view of Space Shuttle Enterprise in launch position on the Space Launch Complex (SLC) #6, commonly known as “SLICK 6”, during the ready-to-launch checks to verify launch procedures at Vandenburg AFB, California. – USAF Photo by TSgt. James R. Pearson

Blast From The Past – Summer 1972 – Firefighters practice putting out a fire at a fire training academy at Hurlburt Field, Ft. Walton Beach, Fla. Hurlburt Field, also called Eglin Air Force Base, Aux Field #9, was my first duty station out of basic training where I was assigned to the 25th Special Operations Squadron. I enjoyed my tour here and won Airman of the Year for my volunteer work with the local Boys Club and photography I did for the base paper.

I’ve not found many pictures I shot there, but one of the memorable assignments I had there was to photograph inside the climatic laboratory on the main base at Eglin. It was a huge hanger where they could bring in just about anything from large aircraft, to small parts and create a cold climate for testing purposes. I can recall a time when it snowed in the hanger in the middle of summer in Florida!

According to Wikipedia: The McKinley Climatic Laboratory is both an active laboratory and a historic site located in Building 440 on Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The laboratory is part of the 96th Test Wing. In addition to Air Force testing, it can be used by other US government agencies and private industry.

On October 6, 1997, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The laboratory was named a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1987.

In 1940, the US Army Air Force designated Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska as a cold-weather testing facility. Because sufficiently cold weather was not predictable and often of short duration, Ashley McKinley suggested a refrigerated airplane hangar be built. The facilities were constructed at Eglin Field.

The first tests started in May 1947. Airplanes that were tested included the B-29 Superfortress, C-82 Packet, P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, P-80 Shooting Star, and the Sikorsky H-5D helicopter. More recently, it has tested the C-5 Galaxy, the F-117, the F-22] the Boeing 787, and the Airbus A350 XWB

On 12 June 1971, the hangar was dedicated as the McKinley Climatic Hangar in honor of Col. Ashley McKinley, who suggested the facility and served at Eglin during its construction.

Blast From The Past – Summer 1980 – Today’s photograph is of me standing in the Coliseum in Rome, Italy. The Colosseum’s original Latin name was Amphitheatrum Flavium, often anglicized as Flavian Amphitheatre. The building was constructed by emperors of the Flavian dynasty, following the reign of Nero. This name is still used in modern English, but generally the structure is better known as the Colosseum.

Blast From The Past – Winter 1994 – People go about their daily life as they visit Moscow’s Red Square. It was taken during “Provide Hope” a humanitarian operation conducted by the U.S. Air Force to provide medical equipment to former Soviet republics during their transition to capitalism.

Just about everywhere I visited on photo assignments for the Air Force we were able to get out and tour around on our own most of time and Moscow was really no exception. I found the people on the street to be friendly and open to Americans for the most part. I know we were watched to some degree while we were in some countries, especially since our job was to take pictures! I can’t say for sure, but the guy looking back in my direction in the center of the frame seemed to be around a lot during our time out walking around, but maybe I was being paranoid!

During Operation Provide Hope, Sixty-five C-5 and C-141 missions flew 2,363 short tons (2,144 t) of food and medical supplies to 24 locations in the Commonwealth of Independent States during the initial launch. Much of these supplies was left over from the buildup to the Persian Gulf War.

For nearly two weeks, US Air Force C-5A’s and C-141’s delivered several hundred tons of emergency food, medicines, and medical supplies to all twelve new independent states of the former Soviet Union, not only to each capital city but also to several outlying cities, especially across Russia. Small teams of US personnel from various government agencies (On-Site Inspection Agency, USAID, and USDA) had been placed in each destination shortly before the deliveries, to coordinate with local officials and to monitor to the best extent possible that the deliveries reached the intended recipients (i.e., orphanages, hospitals, soup kitchens, and needy families).

For 6-months of this operation I was the photo editor for a Combat Camera team that worked out of Aviano, Italy covering the operations.

Blast From The Past – Fall 1987 – An F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft is refueled on the flight line during a training exercise on a Danish Air Base in Denmark during one of the annual Autumn Forge Joint Nation Military Exercises. This was one of the annual exercises that brought me back to Europe many times over my carrier where I was part of a military documentation team in Combat Camera. Our jobs were to document the military operations and provide imagery to the Joint Combat Camera Center located at the Pentagon. These images and video/motion picture footage were used to brief at the Pentagon, the White House and document the history of the military overall. Selected imagery was also release by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense to the general news media. – USAF Photo by SSgt. James R. Pearson

Blast From The Past – Summer 1990 – Jeepneys are a common mode of travel in the Philippines. Here we see a couple heading down the streets of Manila, taken during the time I was stationed at Clark Air Base from 1989-1991. It was an interesting assignment where I lived off the base in a compound where we had armed guards, due to the threat from the Abu Sayyaf militants group, among other such groups during the time I was stationed there. During my tour there I didn’t get to travel as much as I wanted due to these threats to American Military. Otherwise, it was a great tour and I made many great new friends.

Also, the days leading up to my return to the states and a new assignment the Mount Pinatubo volcano was spewing gas and debris. After I was at my next duty station at Norton AFB, California it erupted on June 15th, 1991 covering most of the regions around and Clark with ash! The base was closed by the United States in the early 1990s due to the refusal by the Philippine government to renew the lease on the base.

Blast From The Past – Summer 1994 – A teenager waits patiently for his train to depart the Budapest-Nyugati train station in Budapest, Hungary.

According to Wikipedia: The Nyugati pályaudvar (English: Western railway station), generally referred to simply as Nyugati, is one of the three main railway terminals in Budapest, Hungary. The station is on the Pest side of Budapest, accessible by the 4 and 6 tramline and the M3 metro line.

The station was planned by August de Serres and was built by the Eiffel Company. It was opened on 28 October 1877. Previously another station stood in its place, the end station of Hungary’s first railway line, the Pest–Vác line (constructed in 1846). This building was pulled down in order to construct the Grand Boulevard (Nagykörút) which is now smaller than the outer ringroad (Hungária körút – Hungary Boulevard) and the recently opened motorway ringroad M0 (2008).