There are so many historical things to photograph out there. Some of it seems more timely than others. With the sabre-rattling going on over Georgia, perhaps a photo of this Cold War relic is a timely one.
This Titan II Missile is standing in a nearly complete missile complex in Tucson, Arizona. Decommissioned in the 1980′s, all but this one were blasted to a depth of 20 feet to ensure they could not be easily reused, and so that the Soviet Union could verify their destruction via overhead satellite passes. This one was spared, for historical purposes, and turned into a museum. They give tours ( http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/ ) which are interesting and very informative (AAA Members get $1 off the tour admission BTW). This was a fascinating place to me, having wanted to be a rocket scientist at one point in my life. We always joked with the ROTC students that they were just going to be “key turners” once they graduated (they all wanted to be pilots naturally). Mutually assured destruction seems like insanity to me, but it did keep both sides form using these destructive weapons.
Anyway, if you are in Tucson, this is one thing worth checking out. I got some other interesting photos while there, but most are just of the ‘snapshot’ variety to show people what these facilities were like.
As for the photo, I cropped it, selectively reduced exposure in some areas, and then applied an “aged photo” preset, all in Adobe Lightroom 2
