Talking Pictures

The exclamatory headline was in an e-mail sent to me by Dr. Alan Sloyer when I asked him to forward the high-res file for this image, which he took in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on a family vacation in 2017.

Steve Vaccariello had an advantage when he took this photograph of actor Alan Cumming for Aventura magazine. Well, actually three advantages. The first was that he’d photographed Cumming before. The second, they were friends.

The night promised pictures: there’d be a clear sky and the peak period of the annual Perseid meteor shower.

That’s Carlos Correa, Houston Astros shortstop, in February, 2016, on a secluded beach on the south coast of Puerto Rico, training for the upcoming season. He’d been named American League Rookie of the Year for 2015, but no achievement was going to make this driven professional let up in his efforts to stay ahead of the game.

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.

It’s not Photoshopped. She’s standing there.

The amazing aerial photo above might not have got off the ground if it hadn’t been for social media.