In keeping with my attempt to process an old image once a week, here’s my latest blog photo.

Back in March, our nephew came to visit and we all took a trip to the Udvar-Hazy annex to the Smithsonian Air & Space museum.  I took a few pictures, but never got around to doing much with them.  One of my favorite items on display was the SR-71 Blackbird, built by Lockheed’s Skunk Works team.  They have a fascinating history; from the official Skunk Works site:

Many times a customer would come to the Skunk Works^® with a request and on a handshake the project would begin, no contracts in place, no official submittal process. Kelly Johnson and his Skunk Works^® team designed and built the XP-80 in only 143 days, seven less than was required.

What allowed Kelly to operate the Skunk Works® so effectively and efficiently was his unconventional organizational approach. He broke the rules, challenging the current bureaucratic system that stifled innovation and hindered progress. His philosophy is spelled out in his “14 practices and rules” that he and his team followed. Many of these “rules” are still considered valid today.

It’s not really the Ironman way of doing research, but a semi-autonomous group of incredibly smart scientists and engineers building advanced systems in the dark is pretty cool.  Plus, they have an awesome logo for their team.  With that background, I already like the SR-71 before I even got a chance to walk around the plane, and this photo was one of my favorites.

The lighting isn’t great inside the Udvar-Hazy Center, and I wasn’t using a very fast lens.  I was able to brace myself along a railing and take this shot at 1/6 second.  I had another version of this shot that wasn’t so lucky and was quite blurry.  In post-processing, I tried to knock down some of the really bright windows in the back ground, set a true black point, and really pushed the contrast.  Some of the colors are very saturated, but I really like the detail in the skin of the Blackbird.

As before, leave a comment if you like/dislike the photo (click for larger image).