Eighty year search - Amelia Earhart

Recently a new photo surfaced purporting to show Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, on a dock in the Marshall Islands while her plane was supposedly being barged away in the distance. I guess because it is so easy to accept the premise that a government can be secretive and conspiratorial (whether evil or just inept) that it sounded like such attractive proof for one of the more far-fetched explanations for the disappearance but it didn't take long for the picture to be discounted. Not that the Japanese prisoner theory made much sense to begin with - there would have been too many witnesses. Today, July 12, marks eighty years since the last suspected transmission was heard from Amelia's radio. The search actively continues.

While they're looking, I thought I would add a photo from my archives. This undated press photo was taken by a photographer named Charles Preston Jr. for the Birmingham Post of Birmingham, Alabama and since it has no publication information on the back, I am assuming this was an unused shot from the session. I doubt this is the only copy but this is not a photo in common circulation. Any information about this photographer or this photo would be greatly appreciated.