Postal Service Lifts Its Ban on the Use of Photographs on Stamps : Design: First of three stamps picturing the space shuttle will go on sale at an Anaheim show Thursday.

WASHINGTON — Traditionalists will be shocked, but the U.S. Postal Service has discovered photography. After having long shunned photos for its stamp designs, the agency is turning to them for three of its most expensive stamps of 1995 and some of its commemoratives.

The new $3 priority mail stamp, the $10.75 express mail stamp and a third stamp yet to be announced will all feature National Aeronautics and Space Administration photographs of a space shuttle. The “jumbo-sized” stamps will carry color photos of a shuttle blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., a white shuttle against the darkness of space and a shuttle landing.

Stamps with space themes have long been among the most popular stamps issued by the Postal Service, but until now the agency has relied on artists for virtually all its designs. Photographs have been used as the basis for many stamps, but, except for a handful of designs, the Postal Service always had depended on artists to translate the photograph into a painting.

Now that appears to be changing, as officials at Postal Service headquarters here follow the lead of numerous other countries. When asked if the NASA photos were a first, Postal Service spokesman Robin Wright cited six other stamps--a block of four minerals stamps issued in 1992 and the recently issued POW-MIA stamp--as having actual photographs in their design. The recently announced Women’s Suffrage commemorative, to be issued Aug. 26, also combines two photographs of women’s marches, one from 1913 and a second from 1976.

Graphic designer Phil Jordan of Falls Church, Va., who created the new space stamps, hopes they will establish an acceptance for the use of photos on stamps. “We hoped that once we produced one it would lead to others. I’m certain it will,” he said.

The first of Jordan’s NASA designs, the new $3 priority mail stamp, goes on sale Thursday at the Postage Stamp Mega-Event, a major stamp show in Anaheim. The express mail stamp is scheduled to be released Aug. 4. Release plans for the third stamp, featuring a shuttle landing, have not been announced but, based on previous stamp series, it should be for use on international express mail.

With today’s high-quality offset presses and the recognition that photography is an art form, Jordan agreed that there is no reason not to use photographs on stamps. Indeed, that view is probably shared by Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon, who has the final say on stamp designs. One of Runyon’s sons is a professional photographer.

In other countries, stamps long have been built around photos. Last year’s World Cup soccer games were hardly completed before some nations were selling stamps created with news photographs of the games.