UPDATE: Just a few minutes after posting this item, I was informed that the photo above is a “digital manipulation.” Whatever. I’ll keep it posted just because it’s a cool image.

I just have to share this picture on this blog. It is a couple of years old. It was named National Geographic’s “photo of the year” for 2016.

It amazes me in the extreme how photographers are able to capture images such as this. The shark in this photo looks to be of monstrous proportions. It well might be, say, 15 to 20 feet in length. Whatever. I remain in awe of those who find a way to be in the right place at the right time.

Perhaps the most astonishing news photo I’ve ever seen was snapped in January 1968 by Eddie Adams, who took the picture of South Vietnamese police official Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong suspect on a Saigon street.

He snapped the picture at precisely the moment the VC officer was shot in the head. Adams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize that year.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with and becoming friends with accomplished photojournalists over my nearly four decades as a print journalist. They amaze me with their keen eye and instinct for chronicling the world around us.

Their work runs the gamut from the dramatic beauty of sharks jumping out of the ocean to the hideous drama of war.

Wow!