On a recent family trip to Europe, Gayle’s sons had seen the gargoyles at Notre Dame; the Arc de Triumphe and the Eiffel Tower. They’d seen topless sunbathers and soccer players in the South of France and tango dancers in front of Madrid’s Palacio Real. So how would we digitally collage everything that was in their mind’s eye together into a dramatic keepsake?

One look at the brothers playing peacefully in the sand gave me the inspiration to look at a beach as the world’s sandbox. Given the coloring of the great architectural wonders (that is, grey), I thought, wouldn’t they be perfect as sand castles?