When John Slemp came to the JetWhine.com lunch at EAA AirVenture 2015, he carried with him a large flat package that was maybe 20 by 24 inches by an inch deep and wrapped in brown paper. At such gatherings, most people just show up with their appetites, and as we later learned, John did, too, and it was wrapped in brown paper.
John is a commercial photographer with more than two decades of experience who, since 2001, has specialized in aviation. But his commercial work pays for his labor of love, photographing the decorated veteran leather flight jackets from conflicts past. And when they are still with us, and able to sit for his camera, the veterans who wore the iconic U.S. Army Air Force A-2 and U.S. Navy G-2 flight jackets. In the brown paper were several mounted prints of these spectacular images.
So far he’s photographed 31 pieces of veteran leather, and when he reaches his goal of 50, he plans to publish a book that will really be about, he said, the veterans who wore the jackets pictured. The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, the National Naval Aviation Museum, and others have opened their closets to the project that began at a meeting of EAA Chapter 690 in Lawrenceville, Georgia, with the jacket pictured above. (You can see more at John’s website, Aerographs Aviation Photography website.)
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