Ty Greenlees grew up in Doylestown, Ohio where he received his first instamatic camera as a 7th birthday gift. His father recognized his intense interest in photography and taught him the finer points of manual rangefinder cameras. He saved his lawn mowing money and assembled an odd collection of cameras and darkroom equipment from yard sales and friends to start his photography career in 1980 as the high school yearbook photographer.

Greenlees has been a staff photographer with the Dayton Daily News since 1984. Earning a bachelor’s degree in communication from Wright State University, 1988, while working at the Dayton Daily News, he found a niche for his love of photojournalism and flying in Dayton, the Birthplace of Aviation. A licensed airplane and helicopter pilot, Greenlees teamed with Dayton Daily News reporter Tim Gaffney in 1997 to fly a small airplane across the country photographing and reporting about general aviation in a series called “Spirit of Flight” which earned the Max Karant Award for aviation journalism from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Greenlees has utilized his love of flying and artistic eye to capture unique images from the air.

Publications include the Dayton Daily News, Associated Press, University of Dayton, Miami Valley Research Park, Smithsonian Air & Space, Women in Aviation International, Miller Brothers Construction, A Place Called Home, 2006, Orange Frazer Publishing, Ohio Magazine, and the National Aviation Heritage Foundation.


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