Talking Pictures

BMX rider Daniel Coriz comes in at speed from the right side, launches himself up 10 feet, touches both tires, pulls the handlebars to pop a wheelie off the wall, then turns the bike for a clean exit. He lands a foot in front of adventure sports photographer Michael Clark, who’s been hand-holding his camera, tracking and firing to capture every turn and twist of the trick.

Sports shooters live for moments of key action; they also cherish players’ reactions to those moments. Mike Corrado caught the latter at the start of the third game of the World Series, as New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard sent a message to Kansas City Royals leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar, who is known for crowding the plate and swinging at first pitches.

He lives in a historic California gold-mining town about an hour out of San Diego, so the props for Ed Masterson’s Old West images are easy to come by: a barrel borrowed from a nearby winery, a pistol from a friend’s gun collection, a book from an antique shop, weathered wood from old barns nearby, and so on.

The race was more joy than suspense. American Pharoah had already taken the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, and he led the 2015 Belmont Stakes from the start and was never challenged. Early on, racing fans at Belmont Park were pretty sure they were going to see the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.

The temperature was 19 degrees on a late February morning last winter on the beach at Nantucket, Massachusetts. About 300 yards out the ocean was icing up, and the waves rolling in had the consistency of freshly mixed concrete. Checking things out was pro photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh.

Pro photographer Jim Reed’s specialty is images of severe and unusual weather; in short, he’s a stormchaser.

It’s not your typical image of that place then, which means Mirjam Evers has done her job well. She has images of the colorful chaos of revelers in full regalia, but the challenge is to get something special. “The travel publications I work for ask for something different and unusual,” Evers says. “She was posing, and most of the photographers were shooting from eye level, so I crouched down.”