I took a seat at the corner table, a quiet
place to read. I had no idea that eventually the entire bar would be seated
at my table, telling their story. Maybe I appeared the most unusual person
here - glasses, a buttoned shirt, or was it the book?
"I'm an aerial photographer," Bill
said. "I come here every year. Beautiful country. Born and raised
in New Jersey. But I really belong here. I'm a western guy at heart."
He added in a Jersey accent, "my Stetson is from Montana."
"What are you shooting out here?"
I asked.
"Well, you get these combat exercises going on this time of the year.
They're flying all over the place. Army, Navy, Air Force. Too bad none
of that's going on, because they're all deployed right now."
"How do you do it?"
"There's these roads that head toward (Groom Lake), there are a couple
places left where you can go and get a decent view of Area 51...I mostly
get shots of F14's, F15's, that sort of thing. I have this Nikon. F1.4
and one-eight-thousandths of a second. All I need is for the moon to shine
and I can get a picture."
"What have you seen, what have you shot?"
"I started coming out in 1992. You go out on the public section of
Groom Lake Road during the combat exercises. The planes see your trail
of dust and you're like the automatic target. So they all descend on you
and you've been 'a kill' about a hundred times. That's when you shoot
back. They're playing with you because you're the only interesting thing
out there."
