Jeff Wolfe
Photographer

As a child I always loved to draw and create things, but it wasn’t until I was twelve that I discovered the amazing device called a camera. I grew up in an Air Force family which meant that I moved around a lot. Shortly after my twelfth birthday my family moved to England and my Dad purchased a 35mm SLR camera. I was fascinated by the camera and how it worked. I had a little 110 camera as a child but my family had never purchased a camera as expensive as this one before. Of course I was told not to touch it but that didn’t stop me from sneaking it out of the house.

It was a fully manual camera which meant that I had to learn about photography from scratch. I found books in the library and experimented with the camera until I had it figured out. By the time I was sixteen I was taking the pictures for my High School yearbook and working a few weddings on the weekends. My last two years of school, I was enrolled in a work experiences program that allowed me to work at the Air Force photo lab. I then found a college in Texas that had a good photography program and back to the States I went.

College was fun and I was exposed to a large amount of information on the photographic trade and the businesses behind the imagery. I was planning on getting my degrees in History and Photography so I could teach and have a studio on the side. Then I met a young woman that changed my life. Within a few months I eloped and joined the Air Force. During basic training I was lucky enough to find that the Air Force had two vacancies for photographers and I became one of them.

As time went by I adjusted to life in the Air Force. I won several Tactical Air Command (TAC) level photo competitions and my work was getting noticed by TAC Headquarters and some of the photojournalists in the service. Then I found out that the Thunderbirds where looking for a photographer. I had to send in a portfolio for the team to review and within a few months I found out that I was selected to be the next team photographer. I spent the next three years traveling all over the world and flying in F-16s taking images of the Thunderbirds.

After serving almost eight years in the Air Force I decided to get out and go home to Florida to start a family. I spent a few years working in local photo labs and then started a photography company with my Dad. During that time, I found a publisher and had several military and civilian photos published in magazines, books, calendars, posters, and even the occasional t-shirt. I was then hired by the photographic contractor at Kennedy Space Center. Over the past twelve years I have worked in every aspect of photography, from lab technician to my current job as a photo planner.

The last few years I have been able to design and implement the Institutional Computerized Archiving System (ICAS) for Kennedy Space Center as well as help to establish the Baseline Configuration Imagery (BCI) of the Space Shuttle’s thermal protection system. My current position as BCI Planner affords me the opportunity to utilize my lifelong knowledge and experience to safeguard our space program and provide invaluable data for the current projects and those yet to come.