Dear White House….
OK, so yesterday I heard from a friend that it was reported that the government spent an estimated $360,000 for that “Photo Op” debacle which had the President’s 747 flying low over New York City (good plan!), escorted by a fighter jet (luckily the President wasn’t on board).
I heard what they wanted was a shot of Air Force One (of course, it’s only called Air Force One if the President is actually on board, so we’ll just call it “Big Blue and White 747″) flying over the statue of Liberty with Manhattan in the background. There were probably more cost efficient ways getting that image, and so in literally less than two minutes I hacked together the composite you see above in Adobe Photoshop CS4, using a background from iStockPhoto.com and an official White House shot of “Big Blue and White 747″ from their web site.
Now, here’s my plea to the White House. Rather than spending $360,000 somewhat foolishly (wink, wink), whatdayasay we work out a deal?
I’m trying to raise money for furniture and household appliances for an orphange in Kenya (run by Americans), and I’d be happy to actually take 90 minutes (or more; whatever it takes), and really do the compositing job right, and all you have to do is buy a freezer for around, say $360. You can keep the other $359,640 or give it to GM.
Anyway, by next weekend my schedule will have freed up, so if you’re interested just drop me a line here or call my cell phone (you know the number).



















This post is fantastic, Scott! Obama was extremely upset by this debacle. Does the guy who planned this still have a job? I’d like to know. Your picture looks every bit as real as if it were shot from another airplane. And, I’d be willing to bet that your Photoshop image is better than any that they paid 360,000+ for. It amazes me how irresponsibly money can slip through the fingers of those in power. No doubt out tax dollars paid for that screw up over New York.
Susan
Susan
Over at “RaisinToast“
See this: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20090508-planereport.pdf
The guy responsible lost his job.
Unfortunately, the forthcoming organizational study will cost us taxpayers millions…
Scott
Have you seen the photo’s from this shoot
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/05/military_chief.html
Not that I am surprised but your photshoped creation is 100X better than the actual image
erik
Nice PhotoShop works with AF1
…you do have a good point with the spending on this photo session and most of us would do the same job for probably half the rate.
Did you do the historic Apollo moon landing photos also? ha ha
I think it’s worth noting that any government handing out Photoshopped images of anything is a very, very bad thing!
Well done photoshop! And as you say, much cheaper than flying with the 747 over New York!
This post is great, and then all that one does not know
I love the point of this and I realize you did this in two minutes, but the plane’s shadow, while a nice touch, does not make sense given the sun’s low position on the horizon. Still awesome though.
You made great points there. I made a search on the topic and found most peoples will agree with your blog.