About Peter and Cloud 9 Photography’s Origins

Hello, I am Peter Mancus, your host on Cloud9Photography.US. I'm passionate about photography.

I became interested in photography because my father was a U.S. Air Force flight medic who used a Canon rangefinder camera on his over seas flights to strange, fascinating, far away places. With his pictures, he was able to show my family and I the places he had been to and the people he had photographed. Thanks to him, as a child, I became acquainted, through the medium of photography, with Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Alaska, and islands forming in the Pacific Ocean, which the airplanes he was on, by chance, over flew. To appreciate the significance of photography in those days, one needs to realize that television in the early 1950s was not common in ordinary households. Thus, what my dad was able to do with his camera was wondrous.

Origins of Peter’s Love for Airplanes

As I grew up, it was common to have U.S. Air Force air crews, medics, nurses, and doctors at our home, to go to air bases, and to be on or near flight lines, as my mom took my dad out to the bases or we drove out to pick him up. Thus, I grew up with the United States’ military having a big role in my life. I often saw U.S. military equipment, and I often heard U.S. military personnel discuss their problems, successes, experiences and their opinions about threats to the United States, world tensions, politics, and about how politicians abused or misused the military.

I would have, however, loved airplanes even if my dad was not in the Air Force. Their various shapes are interesting. Their capabilities are impressive. Many are drop dead gorgeous.

I saw my first jet, a North American F-86 Sabre, streak by--fast--over Hickam AFB, Oahu, Hawaii, in the early 1950s. It was loud. It did not have a propeller, of course. And it moved across the sky seemingly effortlessly.

Looking back, it has been interesting to see how technology has changed. I have lived long enough to see the once mighty McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II eclipsed by much more capable and much more fuel efficient jet fighters. I have also lived long enough to read that the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor might be one of the last manned fighters! Why? Answer: UAV’s [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] are becoming more capable. Thus, fighter pilots–in a cockpit–might be eliminated, designed out of, future fighters.

Digression: When I was at the Paris Airshow 2007, to my amazement, I read in an authoritative aviation newspaper that people are working to eliminate airline pilots from airliners! This article said that technology has become so advanced a compelling argument can be made that it will soon be safe to eliminate airline pilots from the cockpit!

Peter’s Formal Education and Primary Employment

I graduated from the University of California at Riverside in 1968 with a B.A. With Honors in Political Science and from the School of Law at the University of California at Davis in 1971 with a Doctors of Jurisprudence. From 1972 to 1976 I was a Deputy District Attorney [a criminal prosecutor] in Southern California.

From 1976 to date I have been, and I am, an active, self-employed, private attorney.

Becoming a lawyer was not my first career choice, but I became one because I wanted to help people with legal problems and to fight the good fight for Freedom and Justice and to restore constitutionalism. Plus, I like trying to solve complex problems, and I like to argue and stand up for what I believe is true and right and for the underdog.

Peter’s Published Credits and Military Jet Flights

In the mid-1980s, I functioned as a civilian photojournalist affiliated with “Airpower” and “Wings” magazines, which published articles I wrote and pictures I took, including true air-to-air photography.

To fly in U.S. military two seat jets as a civilian photojournalists I took U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force required training to earn "a back seat card".

I have flown approximately 50 hours in a variety of U.S. military two seat jets, experiencing going supersonic, high G turns in dissimilar air combat training, aerial refueling, dive bombing, staffing, high sub-sonic low altitude terrain masking flying, and foul weather ultra close formation flying.

I have also flown in military helicopters and transport planes.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know air crews better, experiencing their world, and gaining insights from their comments. As an example, one Air National Guard pilot, while airborne, commented about the shadow our airplane made, e.g., [paraphrased], "Peter, if you can figure out a way to eliminate that shadow Uncle Sam will pay you at least one million dollars."

Stealth technology does not eliminate shadows. Opposing pilots often find their targets by searching the ground for shadows created by other airplanes!

Why Cameras Fascinate Peter

Cameras are wonderful. They allow us to capture an image, to preserve an instant in time, and to reproduce images on paper, with incredible detail, to enjoy for years. In that limited sense, they are somewhat like a time warp tool.

I am also fascinated by wide angle lenses and big telephoto lenses and the different effects obtainable with each lens type.

I love coming onto a scene, the challenge of studying it to figure out what are the latent best photo possibilities, to see beyond the clutter, to pre-visualize how I can exploit to best advantage what is before me, and to select which lens to use from which perspective.

I love that creative freedom to make those decisions.

Visual Candy

I call CLOUD 9's pictures Visual Candy. This is because they are a delight to see.

I stress this: CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY’s images are fresh. This is because they come from private collections, including images that are 30-60 years old, of airplanes that no longer exist.

Peter’s Style of Photography

My style of photography is this: I use professional gear and a wide range of lenses. I prefer tight cropping, dynamic action, and clutter free images, with an emphasis on unusual angles and dramatic lighting, especially with beautiful clouds. I am patient and tenacious. I will spend a lot of time to get the shot I pre-visualized.

I am a photographer, not a snapshooter. A photographer plans ahead, pre-visualizes images he wants, works to get the opportunity to take the image he wants, hones his skill, and, on a consistent, assured basis, executes well so that a high percentage of his images are zingers, namely, images that command a long look.

Photographers do not rely on luck or haphazard clicking away.

Peter’s Favorite Photographic Subjects

I love to photograph airplanes [military, airliners, and warbirds], helicopters, people, animals, historical reenactors, statuary, engineering feats, and landscapes.

Peter Loves to Showcase Excellent Photographers

I also love to show case my friends’ excellent photography who are contributing CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY photographers. Thanks to them, I am able to offer to you their zingers.

If you click on the “General Information” button on the CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY Navigation Bar you will see in the drop down menu a sub-heading for slide show portfolios by those contributing photographers who have contributed enough zingers to warrant their own dedicated slide show.

Origin of Peter’s Obsessive Pursuit of Photographic Perfection

When I was in my early twenties, my mother gave me a wonderful gift: A medium format Hasselblad film camera with a pin prick sharp Zeiss lens. This was a true world class camera.

Soon after I used that Hassy, I discovered something significant about ordinary Kodak photo labs: They did not pursue perfection. I learned this when I read a note, from a Kodak lab, in a package of prints I picked up that that lab made from my Hasselblad negs. This note said Kodak did not want my business anymore because I expected unrealistically high standards, and the reason their prints from my Zeiss lens’ negatives were not sharp was because Kodak’s lab technicians put a diffusing filter between its enlarging lens and the paper to blur out specs on the paper or the film or both! Thus, Kodak admitted that Kodak went out of its way to reduce the resolution power of my pin prick sharp Zeiss lens! That revelation infuriated me. I decided that some day I would sell my pictures when I could maintain control over the entire photographic process, without compromise.

Every link in the chain of photography is crucial to the final result. I refuse to compromise.

At CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY, I have almost total control over every link in the photographic process. As such, I pursue perfection. I often come close to achieving literal perfection.

Why Peter Offers a Money Back Guarantee

I do my best to give my customers good value. I make prints for them as good as I make for myself.

I offer a money back guarantee. I do this because my quality control is high, I inspect each print before I ship it, I will not ship it until it is as perfect as I can make it, and I am confident that people will keep a CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY print once they see it.

So far, since I started CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY on the Internet, no one has asked for a refund. I am proud of that fact.

Origins of Peter’s Other Great Passion: Constitutionalism

I have another GREAT passion–the United States of America, Liberty, Freedom, and Constitutionalism, namely, functioning with assured fidelity to our Constitution’s commands.

I am fiercely nationalistic. I want the United States to thrive and endure, and, to do so, I believe she must return to her roots and obey our Constitution’s commands.

From 1950 to 1953 my dad was a U.S. Air Force aero medical evacuation flight medic who made 53 round trip flights from Hawaii to Japan to Korea and then from Korea to Japan to Hawaii and to Travis AFB, California, bringing back wounded U.S. military and United Nations personnel. He told me he loved that job because he wanted to help the wounded. He also told me that he liked that routine because he did not want to get too close to any wounded personnel because he cared too much and his emotional and mental pain hurt too much. His eyes watered and his voice cracked when he told me that. He was just glad to get them back to Travis before he got to know them better.

What my dad told me about patients he cared for instilled within me a deep appreciation for my freedoms as an American, for U.S. military personnel, and for the United States of America. I learned at an early age that “Freedom is not free”. Instead, it is paid for with the most precious of commodities: human blood, gut wrenching human anguish, and courage.

From 1956 to the early 1970s, my dad was part of the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command–SAC. SAC was that part of the U.S. Air Force that was tasked, during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, via manned bombers and long range missiles. SAC was a tough, no-nonsense, demanding command. What I learned from my dad and air crews, when he was part of SAC re-enforced what I already knew: “Freedom is not free.”

When my dad was part of SAC, I first began to learn about the Cuban Missile Crisis when some one from March AFB in Riverside, California, a SAC base, called our home at around 2:30 A.M. and told my dad to get to the base immediately because his unit had orders to redeploy immediately. Within 15 minutes my dad’s MGA sports car, with its loud muffler, raced up the street to go to March AFB. I did not see him again for about two weeks. My mother told me we were close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

A few times I was off base at various SAC B-52 bases photographing the airplanes taking off and landing when the bombers on alert scrambled within fifteen minutes of a siren going off. When I heard these sirens and when I saw the B-52s take off, one quickly after another, into the black smoke of the previous bomber, I sat there, wondering if what I saw was a drill or the real McCoy and, if within thirty minutes, I would be vaporized by a Soviet nuclear weapon. What I thought and felt was odd.

I mention these experiences to underscore these points: The U.S. Armed Forces are vital. They are instrumental to protecting our way of life. They cannot be easily or rapidly replaced. Every weapon system requires human beings to maintain it and to operate it skillfully. The men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces should be respected. Giving them mere lip service is inadequate and an insult. They should not be abused or misused.

The older I get, and the more I associate with members of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the more I compare them to American politicians, the more I think this sweeping generalization is true: The average member of the U.S. Armed Forces is probably more honorable, more skilled at what they do, and more committed to try to do the right thing than is the average American politician. The older I get the more I loathe American politicians. We are plagued with political whores. We need statesmen with a comprehensive vision based on constitutionalism, frugality, and sound strategic thinking.

I pride myself that I extend our Constitution a saving hand. I wish more people did. I harbor an intense contempt for those who do not.

Our Constitution is a written document that memorializes vital concepts, but it cannot enforce itself. It needs constitutional defenders. Without intending to be egomaniacal, I consider myself to be a constitutional defender. I am proud of that fact.

Peter’s Message

Americans should obey their Constitution's commands, judges should function as Guardians of Liberty, cops should not be badge heavy, prosecutors should be ultra circumspect about who they prosecute and why, and ordinary citizens should be constitutionally literate, demand that their public servants wear their constitutional collar and refrain from usurping power, and should never lay down on their rights.

Every American who lays down on his or her rights makes it harder for every other American to stand up for his or her rights or to stand on his or her rights without being punished by public servants who function as public serpents.

Rights are like muscles. You either use them or you loose them. The United States' claim to fame is this: It, and it alone, is the land of "Due Process of Law"–not simply any “process”, but “Due Process of Law”.

I stress: “of Law.” In the United States of America, “of Law” means 100% faithful to the United States Constitution’s commands.

The “Rule of Law” is nowhere near the same as the “Constitutional Rule of Law”.

As an active attorney for over thirty years, I believe, with good cause, based on facts, that the United States' claim to fame that it alone is the land of “Due Process of Law” is a huge lie. This is because the reality is this: Too many public serpents niggardly dish out only that "process" which they arbitrarily declare is "due", and they dare to call their crimes, under color of law, "Justice" and "Leadership".

I also believes that the United States is no longer a viable nation. Instead, it has become a gaggle and a market place. Americans, as a whole, no longer function like citizens, who exercise oversight control over their public servants, who refuse to tolerate public serpents. Instead, many "Americans" function only as consumers, as serfs, as sheeple, and as enablers in the further destruction of the real Constitutional Rule of Law.

I also believes that too many public servants function as public serpents. These serpents abuse us. They threaten us. They coerce us. They lie to us. They arrest us. They prosecute us. They fine us. They incarcerate us. These serpents do these things in violation of the real Constitutional Rule of Law and in excess of their actual authority. Public Serpents substitute their arrogance, their contempt for the law, their contempt for our rights, and their extortion-like threats, for the law.

These serpents are Domestic Enemies of the United States Constitution. They manifest conduct consistent with treason.

We are plagued with traitors from within. The United States is, therefore, ripe for imploding, for rebellion, for civil war.

If you do not entertain such thoughts, you probably are not well informed, and that is why you especially should read the opinion-editorials in the Food for Thought section of CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY.

Liberty, Truth, and Constitutionalism require constant vigilance . . . and a willingness to resort to self help remedies when society's institutions fail to preserve the real Constitutional Rule of Law.

The real battle for Liberty, Freedom, Truth, Justice, Human Rights, and "the American way of life," is not between Republicans and Democrats or Liberals and Conservatives. Instead, it is between Constitutionalists and Anti-Constitutionalists.

Constitutionalists want government and citizens to function with assured faithful compliance with the Constitution's commands.

Anti Constitutionalists, on the other hand, just make things up as they engage in unprincipled ad hoc governance, which arises out of their ambitions, their greed, and their lust for power and control.

Mankind's greatest achievement is the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution, which is the first ten amendments to that Constitution. That Bill is Mankind's greatest achievement because that Bill, in what is now the United States, legally declared a formal end to arbitrary rule, codified legal limits on government's powers, and codified certain legal rights. That Bill is the high water mark of Mankind's march toward an improved civilization.

The Bill of Rights is like an invisible glue that holds us together as a nation and makes us a nation. Every right in that Bill, however, is under prolonged, intense, relentless attack, by public serpents. If you do not believe that, you especially need to read what is in the Food for Thought part of CLOUD 9.

The invisible glue arising from our precious Bill of Rights is letting go. It is letting go because too many Americans do not know their rights, are apathetic, and function as sheeple. Sheeple embolden public servants to function as public serpents.

The United States is coming apart because too many Americans are at each others’ throats, are bullies, are constitutionally illiterate, are apathetic, are unprincipled, and are gutless.

Americans must not let public serpents use 9-11, or any other excuse, to gut any right in the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights did not go down with the Twin Towers, on 9-11, or later. Or, did it?

Americans are well advised to heed this warning: The United States, once stripped of its Bill of Rights, or once it refuses to enforce that Bill, is nothing more than a post Industrial Revolution gaggle, masquerading as a "nation", in its death throes, rotten from the inside out, ready to fall down and die.

When that Bill is no longer respected and no longer enforced, the United States of America is dead.

For me, without a viable Bill of Rights, there is no longer any compelling reason to fight for the United States. I am hard pressed to think of a compelling reason to fight to help keep Public Serpents in power. I do, however, fight to restore constitutionalism. That means regime change, at home, where I live, where I have planted my flag. I want constitutionalists in power.

We should stop electing and stop obeying misleaders who pursue folly, who champion unconstitutional laws, and who return to lick their civic malpractice vomit which they call "leadership".

Our misleaders treat Americans like mushrooms: They keep us in the dark and they feed us verbal fecal matter.

This nation needs an immediate return to its core root: the Constitutional Rule of Law.

After approximately 250 years of existence, it is tragic and inexcusable that Americans have not achieved a consensus as to what the United States Constitution means or how it should be administered. Instead, we are plagued with our misleaders’ ad hoc, conflicting, arbitrary rules and unprincipled governance 100% devoid of a principled constitutional base.

CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY.US has excellent pictures of military airplanes and members of the U.S. Armed Forces. If you truly respect, admire, and value members of the U.S. Armed Forces, you can honor them best by having the courage to take advantage of the shield they provide us. You will exercise your rights. You will refuse to lay down on your rights. You will become constitutionally literate. You will demand that our Federal, State and Local governments, and their agents, who are suppose to serve us well as public servants, function constitutionally. You will demand that our nation’s leaders will not misuse or abuse our Armed Forces.

Many Americans are at a lost to understand why Iraq's Sunni’s and Shiite’s cannot resolve their differences and co-exist peacefully. Modern Americans, in many ways, however, are similar to Iraq's Sunni’s and Shiite’s. Why? Answer: I once saw a political cartoon that underscored my point. In this cartoon, two Iraqi's, in Arab dress, were running forward, jumping, with a "true believer's" zeal in their eyes, carrying automatic weapons. One said he was fighting for his freedom to enslave the other and the other said the same thing, in reverse.

My definitive point is this: When Americans use elections to elect officials who will cherry pick those parts of the United States Constitution they will enforce against one group of Americans and refuse to enforce other parts, which protect Americans from the “tyranny of the majority”, one side’s gang has hijacked government via elections, and that side will use its gang in government to oppress the other side. Thus, there is hardly a material difference between Iraqi's and Americans. In the end, it is not a matter of "Due Process of Law." Instead, it is simply only one gang versus another.

We all have a tombstone in our future. What we do with the balance of our lives will affect how others living and yet to be born, including our loved ones, will live.

If you care about your future, about your loved ones' future, about the United States of America's future, you are well advised to read the Food for Thought section of CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY.

"Freedom is not free."

No American should take their freedom for granted.

Liberty and Truth require constant vigilance.

The United States Constitution has more domestic enemies than it has foreign ones.

Our domestic enemies have agendas that undermine the real Constitutional Rule of Law, and they are constantly working to do that by their adjustments to the Truth and to the real Constitutional Rule of Law to enslave you and me, by stripping us of our rights, by denying us "Due Process of Law", and by denying us any viable legal remedy.

The absence of a legal remedy amounts to a total denial of "Due Process of Law".

But, "Due Process of Law" is not an option for Public Servants. It is an inexorable, uncompromising, formal command on all of Governments’ Agents, at least in the United States of America that I know, that I was born into.

Thank You!

Thank you for visiting. Please visit often. We have many more images and more Brain Protein to post.

Comments Are Welcome

If you want to comment on any picture, you can do so by doing this by simply clicking the ‘add comment’ button below the picture.

If you want to comment on any opinion-editorial in the Food for Thought section, please send me your comment(s) via email.

If you want to write an opinion-editorial for CLOUD 9 PHOTOGRAPHY, please send it to me for review, with your authorization to post it, with your byline credit.

– Peter Mancus

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