Barry Tanenbaum

You’re on Meols Beach, on the Irish Sea, looking east across the River Mersey; those lights are Liverpool. The beach is the place where imaging happens for Ray Mcbride when time and tide are just right.

Unlike landscape, portrait, wildlife, or even sports photographers, the first shots taken these days by advertising photographers on the job are almost always instantly seen and judged—by the client, the client’s representative, an agency rep, or an art director. Pressure, anyone?

Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia, is a favorite place for photography for Cindy Dyer, who specializes in botanical subjects, and it was there that two years ago she was featured in an exhibition of 88 of her photos. A visitor to that exhibit, who happened to be the wife of an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, saw her work and mentioned Cindy to her husband, who happened to be looking for specific subject images to license for stamps. Cindy submitted 20 photographs of ferns, from which the Postal Service selected five for First Class Forever Stamps, which are currently available for purchase online at the USPS website.