Very talented craftsperson.
> As a style, Photorealism has a few detractors, who often dismiss it as pointless, or non-art. They fail to realize that many photorealistic paintings are not mere copies of photographs, but interpretations of reality based on the artist's vision. The act of merely copying a photograph has no artistic merit except to hone one's artistic skills. Most of my aviation paintings would be impossible to photograph, such as Timing is Everything for example. This painting of Tica is not just a copy of a photograph, but is a product of many artistic decisions, whereas I deviated from the reference photo for more aesthetic appeal.
Your "craftsperson" reference is snide. I have a couple of snide opinions myself, I guess. It's obvious that there is a wide variety of compositions just dying to have photorealistic treatment--subjects where, as the author points out, getting a camera shot would be impossible. Unfortunately, being able to do photorealistic art takes real skill, and that skill appears to be consistently deprecated by the art world.
Of course, while many things re impossible to photograph for one reason or another, visual effects artists and compositors specialize in making it credible - as someone with an interest in the latter, I find his airbrush approach extremely interesting.
The system is now that popular artists are management with a crew of lower tier artists who function as manufacturing.
Artisans, including air brush artists, are now by definition not Artists, because to celebrate your technical skills is to be seen only as a technician by the "Ideas are Art" crowd.
Similar enough to the management/programmer divide.
I've seen videos not unlike your F111 ("Timing is Everything").
This artwork undoubtedly takes huge skill - I think that it is deprecated because it doesn't appear to say much beyond the actual image. It doesn't appear to convey deeper meaning, resonating with something of the social climate and the person of the viewer as [I consider] good art should.