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Paul Giebeig, 25, helps Caralee White, 19, with her jacket after a portrait session in December. Their relationship started by casually meeting for lunch on Mondays. Two years ago, Valentine’s Day fell on a Monday, so he knew if he didn’t bring her anything he’d be labeled a friend, he said. So he came with a rose and asked her out. Valentine’s Day 2007 will be the couple’s two-year anniversary, and Giebeig wanted to make it special.
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Giebeig spent countless hours thinking and planning the details. He said he thought about issues — like how large do the letters need to be in order to be seen clearly from 1,200 feet, the plane’s altitude when he’ll show it to his girlfriend, how to make the cursive letters look like the same font, and how to make the cursive A’s and E’s be equally sized. Edward Bell, a lifelong friend of Giebeig’s family, donated the use of 18 acres for the project that started early Nov. 2006, and he volunteered to do all the mowing.
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Giebeig gives White a kiss on the cheek before boarding a four-passenger plane at University Air Center in Gainesville, Fla. White said in a later interview she had never been on a plane that small. “I saw the plane, and it was different than what I was expecting and so nerves started crashing in,” she said.
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The message measures 80 feet by 50 feet. Giebeig decided to combine his dream of flight with something said in one of White’s favorite songs “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap. The song mentions crop circles. Bell said 40 cows escaped into the field two weeks before Valentines Day for eight hours before being discovered. Luckily, they stayed around the perimeter of the field. The photograph was taken later, the day of.
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White, shown reacting to the proposal, said yes. “He caught me by surprise and worked his wonders as he always does,” she said. The pilot, Matt McFarlane, with a preset camera, took the photograph.
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While leaving the airport, the couple passed by a jet, with two Navy flight instructors standing around. “Excuse me, is this a training jet?” Giebeig asked. The group of four had a short conversation in which Giebeig revealed what just happened and that he has a flight contract with the Marine Corps. Afterward, one of the flight instructors asked Paul if he’d like to get strapped into the jet. Giebeig declined and said he and White were in their own little world at the moment.
© 2006 - 2012 Octavian Cantilli | Florida Based Documentary, Travel, Sports and Portrait Photographer | SoloFolio