Table of Contents   John Heiney-Photographer Aloft! - Hang Gliding   Diana Robinson-Photographer Arizona Cape Cod, Massachusetts China Closeup Photographs Coastal California The Desert Southwest The Holy Land Ireland Kayaking Photographs Lake of the Woods Nation's Capital New York City Parades/Special Occasions Paris Russia Sicily South Pacific/Tropical Venice-Udine-Trieste     From National Archives Mathew Brady Photos Civil War Photographs Lewis Hine Photos Dorothea Lange Photos     Metropolitan Museum of Art Ancient Near East Art Arms and Armor Art of Africa Art of Ancient Egypt Benin Bronzes Islamic Art     Miscellanous Photos Marian McPartland's 85th Birthday Bash at Birdland Home

Multimedia Library Image Series Flash Demo (Flash Video)   IMAGE Royalty Free Series of Photographs Each volume in the Image Series contains approximately 200 photographs. We have made smaller JPEG versions of these photographs available here for use on the web. Persons wishing to use any of these photographs in a commercial setting should contact us for pricing information (1-212-674-1958). Feel free to use any of these images in your web pages. Please give the following credit: Copyright © 2008 - The Multimedia Library (http://www.multimedialibrary.com.) Click below to go to the descriptions of each Image Series Volume: [  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  ] Volume 1:   Russia and China (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 2:   South Pacific, Tropical and California Coast (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 3:   Parades, Demonstrations, Special Occasions (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 4:   Art of Ancient Egypt Volume 5:   Art of Africa and Benin Bronzes Volume 6:   Arms and Armor Volume 7:   Islamic Art and Ancient Near East Volume 8:   Nation's Capital and New York City (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 9:   The Holy Land (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 10:  Aloft! (John Heiney, Photographer) Volume 11:  Mathew Brady and Civil War Photographs Volume 12:  Lewis Hine Photographs Volume 13:  Dorothea Lange Photographs Volume 14:  The Desert Southwest and Arizona (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 15:  Paris (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 16:  Cape Cod (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 17:  Sicily (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 18:  Closeup Photographs (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 19:  Lake of the Woods (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 20:  Kayaking Photographs (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 21:  Venice-Udine-Trieste Photographs (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Volume 22:  Ireland (Diana Schwartz, Photographer) Russia/China Volume 1 - Russia/China, contains contemporary urban and rural scenes. The Russia section contains photographs of historical monuments, architecture, animals, children, commerce, Red Square, The Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral. The China section contains photographs of The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, Chinese urban and rural scenes, etc. The images of China on this disk date from the summer of 1990, one year after the Tiananmen violence, and the Russian images from the summer of 1991, just a few months before the foiled coup. The Russian photographs show a nation on the verge of great changes: the traditional symbols of Soviet power still alongside the icons and church domes of ancient Russia, but with new signs of western influence plainly visible: McDonald's in Pushkin Square, Dior perfumes in a shop window only yards from the Bolshoi Theatre. Moscow; the Novosibirsk science center in central Siberia; St. Sergius' historic monastery city of Zagorsk; and Tallinn, still the capital of Soviet Estonia in May, 1991, but a few months later the capital of an independent Republic; are all featured. Some of the national differences which fueled the move to independence are visible in the contrast between the Scandinavian appearance of the Estonians and the Lutheran architecture of Tallinn's old city. The photographs of China were gathered in Beijing; Shanxi Province, near the ancient capital of Xian; Szechuan's industrial city Chongqing on the upper Yangtze River; Nanjing; and Shanghai. Here we see the monuments and habits of an ancient civilization coming to stand side by side with modern age tourism. The Beijing scenes include the colossal palace compound (Forbidden City), Emperor Chien Lung's giant bell with 40,000 characters of Buddhist scriptures cast into its bronze, and Beijing's equally amazing bicycle traffic. The contrasting rural photographs show the immemorial China of farms and villages the jewel-like, pampered rice paddies and wheat fields which sustain its population. The Xian images, taken in the city that was China's capital for over 1,000 years, show some of the minority populations and monuments gathered up in its days of imperial splendor as the Middle Kingdom. South Pacific/Tropical/California Coast Volume 2 - South Pacific/Tropical/California Coast, the South Pacific and Tropical section contains contemporary Hawaiian beaches, landscape and volcanoes, Tonga Island, Puerto Rico beaches and landscape, California Coast section contains photographs of Monterey, Highway 101, California beaches, wildlife, etc. The smaller islands of the Pacific Ocean grow as volcanoes from the ocean bottom, bursting forth in fire as they rise above the surface of the waters, but disguising themselves as placid coral flats when their highest peaks remain submerged. Our images of Hawaii's vast brooding craters, green cliffs, and blackened, almost lunar lava flows trailing down to the blue sea illustrate the stunning contrasts of foliage and flame that spring into being when immense tropical volcanoes rise from the sea. Tonga, the "South Island" of the ancient Polynesians and the centerpiece of Captain James Cook's "Friendly Island" group, stands in contrast as a placid coconut-and-taro plantation, whose coral plains hide the submerged peaks on which they rest. The interplay of land, wind, and water lends further charm to all these islands. The rainforest luxuriance of Oahu's 'windward' western coast and its ancient craters collapsed to gorgeous beaches show one mood of its surrounding winds and oceans; the plaintive, semidesert isolation of its rain-starved 'leeward' east is very different. Where Tonga's coral rises just a few yards above the sea, yet another spectacle results, as waves driven in over thousands of miles of surrounding ocean hurl themselves through narrow tunnels eroded in its rock, to explode in geysers of ocean spray: this is Tonga's mile-long 'blowhole' landscape, still less famous than it deserves to be. Six thousand miles to the east on the same ocean, the California coast echoes Hawaii's land-wind-water theme, but a hint of northern restraint now replaces Hawaii's unrestrained exuberance, and the mass of the eastward-stretching continent is felt. Here also Spanish Missions show us history congealed, not into the chants and legends of the remoter Pacific, but into Europe's stone. Parades, Demonstrations and Special Occasions Volume 3 - Parades, Demonstrations and Special Occasions, contains urban happenings, protests, parades, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas themes, street fairs, street musicians, marching bands, food festivals, etc. From long before the Egyptian 'Sed' festivals of 3000 B.C. and the Saturnalias, Floralias, Lemurias, and Triumphs of the Romans, to today's Thanksgiving and Halloween parades, the life of mankind has been punctuated by moments of special spectacle. The modes and themes of these special occasions are as inevitable as the urge to celebrate or protest. Music sounds out, whether from the Legion's Bursator or the clarinets and drums of a high-school marching band; the great men of the polis are praised, mocked, celebrated, ridiculed. Allegorical figures appear as masks and costumes; totems serious and comic, symbols of the nation, witches and beneficent spirits, favorite actors, the grim reaper, the common citizen and his wife, walking vegetables, an idiot dwarf, a party of clowns, the Gods themselves. Tables of festival food and drink appear on streetcorners. The community's young men and veteran warriors step forward to recall and vaunt their strength, perhaps in games and contests; and its maidens to add their special graces. Absent a mood of violence, the habits of celebration carry over even to occasions of protest, which like celebration uses music and song to rouse the community in its mass, and whose sterner mood does not entirely preclude celebration-like moments of levity and good-humored satire. This collection presents images reflecting these immemorial themes. We show the marchers and demonstrators themselves, the signs they carry, the inevitable onlookers, the elements of music, feast, and simple amusement that surround them, the police who protect or confine them. In addition to such major American festivals and patriotic occasions as Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, and Independence day, we show typical demonstrations and protests, along with special events such as concerts and sports events of no fixed date or ceremonial content. Some of our images focus on other places or ethnic groups: Tonga's Heilaka Festival, Puerto Ricans, West Indians. Each of these has its own special flavor; all reflect the exuberance of crowds on the march. Art of Ancient Egypt Volume 4 - Art of Ancient Egypt, contains images photographed from the world-famous collection at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It covers Egyptian art from the predynastic period up to the end of the pharaonic kingdom, making outstanding images drawn from more than 4,000 years of art available. In 3200 B.C. the conquering armies of a new and mightier Pharaoh carried forth the image of Horus the Falcon God, marching North and South to overwhelm all separate earlier chieftains and kings and create a political order and civilization that was to remain remarkably stable for the next three thousand years. Expanding upon and perfecting the technologies that had been developing in the Nile region since the old stone age tens of thousands of years before, this new kingdom developed a remarkably sophisticated art, some of whose outstanding products are seen on this disk. The ancient artists whose work is here collected interested themselves greatly in luxury items of daily household use, creating decorated combs, chairs, beds, toys, musical instruments, cosmetic cases, necklaces, rings, bracelets, kitchen crockery and stately vases, weapons, and an infinitude of other items in endless and astonishing profusion. Nevertheless they and their clients were concerned not only with the life of this world, but equally and even more with that of the next, which according to their curiously materialistic system of mystical beliefs required not only an elaborate collection of spells for dealing with the perils which the departed soul would encounter on its way to divine judgement and beyond, but an ample collection of very material supplies for use in the afterlife. For this reason, the wealthy, and even the well-to-do, among the ancient Egyptians were far from content with the simple old-style graves which continued to serve the poor; for the afterlife, they wanted mansions, indeed palaces, equal to, even superior to, those which they occupied in the present. For would the soul not dwell far longer in eternity than in this passing world? Hence arises the magnificent treasure of funeral art which comes to us from that ancient day. In it are reflected all the preoccupations and pastimes of Pharaonic life, both secular and religious: sarcophagi to magnify the body and preserve its shape for re-use by the departed soul, if the final surgery that was mummification failed of its desired aim; statues of loved ones and paintings of favorite scenes; inscriptions which repeat the spells and prayers which the distracted soul might otherwise forget amidst the turmoil of passage to a new life; board games to while away eternity's long hours; statues, and even mummies, of beloved pets, as for example the wonderful mummy of a pet falcon, reproduced here, which is still, we may presume, hawking with its doting owner after the immortal spirits of departed doves. Reviewing these images we re-enter the life of that ancient day and wonder at how little our own art is able to exceed the beauty which it attained. The items collected on this disk all were photographed directly from the wonderful collection of Pharaonic art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The editors would like to thank the management of this great museum for allowing them photographic access to what is one of the world's finest, and surely is the most perfectly presented, major art collections. Art of Africa/Benin Bronzes Volume 5 - Art of Africa/Benin Bronzes, contains images photographed from the African Art collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Also included are Benin Bronzes from the Perl Collection, African masks, wood and metal work, sculpture, etc. The art of sub-Saharan Africa astonishes the viewer with its intensity and wild transformations of form in statue and mask. It is an art deeply integrated into ritual, charged with the passion of myth and worship, radiant with power, steeped in magic and blood, transcendent and sacred in a manner lost in Europe since mediaeval times. It values emotional truth over naturalism, symbol over photograph, vigor and force over the repose and serenity of classical European statuary. Its masks bring sculpture alive for dance and ritual, to project a mythosocial personality which is fearsome and playful by turns. Motherhood and paternity recover their primality as creators of the human world, animals their wonder, music its fusion with form, divine masks their awesomeness as patrons of the major transitions of human life. This disk collects an array of masterpieces from the renowned collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and includes pieces representative of many of the most important Central and West African sculptural styles. Works in a variety of materials are shown: small pieces in gold, products of the woodcarver's skill, constructions combining wood and shell, the cast Bronzes of Benin. These latter works, ceremonial and royal, receive special emphasis. Showing us kings and queens, courtiers and warriors, staffs of office, birds of prophecy, symbols of wealth, they surely reach the very summit of art. Arms and Armor Volume 6 - Arms and Armor, contains images photographed from the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These include images of major works of European, Islamic, and Japanese arms and armor. "Arma virumque cano" — "I sing of arms and the man" wrote Virgil, reflecting the long contest between armor and missiles, whose history antedates Goliath versus David and will extend beyond today's ceramic-coated tanks and uranium-tipped tank breakers. The vital importance of this contest to the fate of nations has continually brought treasure into the hands of the armor-makers, who, before our own utilitarian day, saw fit to lavish part of it on the beautification of weapons themselves: the tools whose possession identified the Knights, Princes, Khans, Samurai, and Daimyo standing at the head of their respective societies. So weapons themselves became treasures, collectible ever since Ajax and Odesseus quarreled over the arms of Achilles. This collection exhibits masterpieces from one of the world's great treasuries of armor and weaponry as art: that of the New York's Metropolitan Museum. Two of the Museum's earliest trustees, William H. Riggs and Rutherfurd Stuyvesant, were deeply interested in this area, and by 1930 the Metropolitan collection had grown to international renown. Its collection covers many periods and geographic areas: Roman items are included, as are Ostrogothic and Langobardic pieces from the period of Roman collapse, Viking arms from the darkest times of the Middle Ages, treasures from the age of high chivalry and early renaissance, and later pieces reflecting Europe's growing wealth and developing technology. Islamic arms of Mughal, Persian, Turkish, Balkan, and Moroccan origin are represented, and Japan contributes the splendors of its samurai armor, war helmets, battle masks, and swords. The 200 images on this disk, which show some of the finest pieces from this magnificent collection, should be of interest both to graphic designers and to viewers wishing to savor the curious strength and refinement of tools of destruction as works of high art. Islamic Art/Ancient Near East Volume 7 - Islamic Art/Ancient Near East, contains images photographed from the world-famous Islamic Art collection at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It covers Islamic art, Iznik pottery, Iranian art, etc. In the decade following the death of its founder (632 C.E.) Islam burst forth from the Arabian peninsula, and within a century the Muslim empire extended from Spain to India. Though older local traditions were by no means wholly lost, the new religion transformed art and culture over this vast region profoundly. Perhaps the most characteristic art form for this 'religion of the book' was its stunning calligraphy, whose many styles, some austere, some florid, recast the Koran's poetry into dazzling cursive swirls that surely delighted their creators as much as they delight those who now behold them. Geometric art, given impulse by Koranic strictures against idolatry of natural forms, flourished in media ranging from cloth to stone and pottery, from brass to book illustration, and is a second grand legacy of the Islamic tradition. We also find a charming pictorial art, the survival of older naturalistic traditions, particularly in Iran and India. These draw on the rich poetry of North Africa, Arabia, Iran, and India, retelling favorite tales of heroism and romance, beauties and demons, kings in battle, kings at their refined and courtly pleasures. A delight in nature so intense as to transform image almost into jewelry is often evident. This disk shows 200 striking pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's famed Islamic collection. We thank the administrators of this great museum for allowing us to bring some of the treasures of this amazing collection to a wider audience. Washington, D.C. and New York City Volume 8 - Nation's Capital/New York City, features images from two great cities Washington, D.C. and New York City. It features monuments, architecture, people, commerce, industry, The White House, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, Jefferson Monument, Statue of Liberty, Greenwich Village, Flat Iron Building, Manhattan skyline, brownstones, etc. New York is surely one of the most interesting cities in the world, and Washington one of the most interesting U. S. cities. New York is intense, bustling, polyglot, defiant, barbaric, and planned only partially; Washington, still very much the orderly creation of Pierre L'Enfant, is spacious and stately. New York is a port city of artists (and would-be artists), publishers, stockbrokers, and merchants; Washington an inland capital dominated by officials and military. New York is intellectual and working-class; Washington bureaucratic and a bit Southern. Washington, though less a heaping up of all the world's populations than New York, is surprisingly polyglot, and matches New York's population of Koreans, Hindus, and Chinese with its large Ethiopian and Vietnamese communities, not to mention its amazing collection of Somali, Sikh, and Iranian cab drivers. Washington is a city of broad avenues and imposing vistas, New York, even at its most colossal, a scene of crowded urban canyons. Nevertheless a few oases of serenity can be found in New York: Central Park's rambles and broad meadows, the floral fields and giant hothouses of the Bronx botanical gardens, the many micro-parks tucked away in odd corners of the city. This disk displays the moods and aspects of these two very different cities. New York is seen in its crowds, towers, graffiti, arts centers, Chinatown, markets, docksides, and moments of zany humor. Washington is shown in its official buildings, springtime floral display, war cemeteries and memorials, statuary, and museums. These latter are especially noteworthy: though not itself a center of artistic creation, Washington is a great museum city, which can boast of first class collections of American, European, African, and Asiatic Art, as well as the Smithsonian Institution's renowned collections of historical and technical artifacts. Both cities are also major centers of education, New York in particular being home to nearly half a million university students and to such centers of study as Columbia University, New York University, the dozen campuses of the New York City University system, Fordham, Pace University, the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, the Cooper Union, and numerous others, some of which we show. The Holy Land Volume 9 - The Holy Land, contains scenes from Israel including Jerusalem, The Dead Sea, Megiddo, Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Masada, Bedouin Market, Bet She'an, Mount Zion, Wailing Wall, old city gates, El Aqsa Mosque, Tel Aviv, etc. Israel's landscape fuses the modern and the ancient: road signs direct trucks past Gath and Sodom, Ashkelon and Megiddo, to the ramparts of Masada, the river Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, and to Cananite, Judean, Roman, Byzantine, Arabic, and Turkish ruins. One is reminded at every turn that vanished Empires have fought over this soil and great religions have sprung from it. Abraham bought a well here; Joshua destroyed and Solomon built walls around whose base we can still walk; Alexander the Great set siege to Gaza, and Herod intrigued with emissaries of Anthony and of Augustus. This CD-ROM collects the varied images of this ancient land: we show busy streets and isolated ruins, tourists and worshipers, the Dome of the Rock and the Stations of the Cross, Bedouin salesmen and Israeli troops. We show markets filled with dates, olives, nuts, raisins, chickens, and goats differing little from those which Pilate's legionaries would have bought, joined now by the tinned products and automobile parts which make the modern age. Lakes and deserts, people and plants, archeology and modern cafes can all be seen. Aloft! Volume 10 - Aloft! contains color photographs by world freestyle hang gliding champion John Heiney. These include scenes of hang gliders, para-gliders, and sky divers in action against a range of landscapes, skies, and backgrounds. This disk offers you a pilot's eye view of some of the most spectacular vistas in America and beyond, as you join world hang gliding freestyle champion John Heiney in soaring and looping over breathtaking terrain from the Adirondacks to the magnificent cliffs of Torrey Pines at La Jolla, California. John is famous throughout the hang gliding community for his beautiful 35mm photographs, which appear regularly in Hang Gliding magazine, calendars, publications of the USHGA (United States Hang Gliding Association), and many foreign and domestic consumer publications. Many of the most famous hang-gliding sites in North American are featured: Telluride, Fort Funston near San Francisco; Sylmar near Los Angeles; Crestline, California; Inspiration, near Provo, Utah; Torrey Pines near San Diego; Point-of-the-Mountain near SLC, Ellenville, New York; Lake Elsinore, California; Big Sur; Owens Valley; and Yosemite. The modern flying technique and equipment seen in these images will inspire both hang gliding enthusiasts and persons contemplating entry into this exhilarating sport, which has evolved rapidly since the triangular Rogallo wing of the early 1970s, particularly in the areas of performance and safety. Strong and light, the modern hang glider is subjected to rigorous testing by an association of hang glider manufacturers to determine airworthiness. Hang gliding remains a free activity due to a strong and persistent effort of self-regulation by the hang gliding community. Mathew Brady and Civil War Photographs Mathew Brady and Volume 11 - Civil War Photographs, contains 200 grayscale photographs scanned directly from negatives and photographs at the National Archives. Civil War scenes and Mathew Brady portraits feature some of the best-known people of the time. Mathew B. Brady (1823-1896) was one of the foremost early American photographers and one of the earliest war photographers. His portraits of historic figures of the time make as unique a collection of distinguished subjects as Nadar's portraits in Paris from 1855 to 1870. Lewis Hine Photographs Volume 12 - Lewis Hine Photographs, Lewis Wickes Hine, 1874-1940. In 1936 Hines was employed by the National Research Project on Re-employment and Recent Changes in Industrial Techniques of the WPA and made over 600 photographs for the project. This collection contains 200 grayscale photographs from this period. Lewis Wickes Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1874. For a time he worked in a furniture factory and then was trained to be a teacher at the Oshkosh Normal School. He taught in elementary and high schools. In 1901 he went to New York as a botany teacher at the Ethical Culture School. In 1902 he returned to his birthplace to marry Sara Rich. The head of his school Fred Manny suggested in 1903 that he use the camera as a tool in his teaching. He obtained a degree in sociology from Columbia University in 1905. With Charles F. Weller in 1906 and 1907 he photographed the slums of Washington, D.C. In 1908 he resigned as a teacher and announced to the world in the Charity and Commons Magazine that he was a photographer. In the same year the Russell Sage Foundation published "West Side Kids" illustrated by 100 Hine photographs. During the next six or eight years he took over 5,000 photographs for the National Child Labor Committee. His only son was born in 1912. He sailed to France in May 1918 for the American Red Cross and during his stay in Europe also photographed the conditions in Greece. Upon his return home in 1919 he and his family moved to Hastings on the Hudson. He published "Men at Work" in 1932. In this book he stated that the more he saw of modern machines the more he respected the men who made and operated them. In 1933 he spent several months making photographs for TVA. Although some feel that his photography is over simplified he had much influence in the development of the photograph as a sociological document. In 1936 he was employed by the National Research Project on Reemployment and Recent Changes in Industrial Techniques of the WPA and made over 600 photographs for the project. He also made many of his early industrial and child labor photographs available for illustrations in the publications. His wife died on Christmas Day 1939. His death followed less than a year later on November 3, 1940. More can be learned of his life and photography in Judith Mara Gutman's "Lewis W. Hine and the American Social Conscience", 1965. Dorothea Lange Photographs/The Great Depression Volume 13 - Dorothea Lange Photographs/The Great Depression, contains 200 grayscale photographs taken by Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) for the Works Project Administration in 1936. These photographs are from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. They were scanned in and cleaned up for electronic display. Lange was born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn in Hoboken, New Jersey, of German descent. As a young girl she was stricken with polio, which left her with a lifelong limp which she believed heightened her sensitivity to the sufferings of others. As a member of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic unit under Roy Stryker, Dorothea Lange photographed migrant workers, sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and other victims of the Depression in 22 states, primarily in the South and West, between 1935 and 1942. The Desert Southwest and Arizona Volume 14 - The Desert Southwest and Arizona, contains 200 color photographs of the Arizona desert and White Sands, New Mexico. Images include desert wildflowers, cacti, Joshua trees, Boojum tree, Saguaro cacti. Paris Volume 15 - Paris, contains color photographs of Paris taken in 1995 and 1996. A broad range of sights is covered in this collection including the Opéra de la Bastille, the Musée Picasso, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, La Défense, Musée du Louvre, Notre Dame, Musée d'Orsay, Hôtel des Invalides, Le Marais, Place des Vosges, and Jardin des Tuileries to name a few. Cape Cod Volume 16 - Cape Cod, contains color photographs of Cape Cod. Cape Cod is a sandy peninsula (about seventy miles long) extending from the east coast of Massachusetts into the Atlantic Ocean. Here are some of the prettiest villages in all of North America. As the photographs show, the Cape Cod landscape is a composite of some of the most magnificent sand dunes and high sand cliffs on the Atlantic coast, long stretches of sandy beaches, salt marshes, estuaries, ponds, bays, streams, rivers, harbors, islands, inlets, thick woodlands, farmlands, and cranberry bogs. Trees include pitch pine, scrub oak, elm, maple, beech, and Atlantic white cedar. Flowers include rosa rugosa (beach rose), bayberry, heather, holly, honeysuckle, rhododendrons, tiger lilies, and lilacs. Sicily Volume 17 - Sicily, contains color photographs of Sicily. Sun-warmed Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. It is an island of mountains, soft beaches, rocky beaches, volcanic rocks, isolated villages, vibrant cities, Greek temples, and extremely hospitable people. Though Sicily is part of Italy most Italians think of it as another country. It has a rich cultural past which can be seen today in its Greek temples, Roman amphitheaters, Byzantine chapels, Arab baths, Norman castles, and baroque churches. Sicily also has Europe's largest active volcano, Mount Etnea. The photographs featured here show only the eastern coast of Sicily around Catania, Acicastello, Acitrezza, and Mount Etnea. Closeup Photographs Volume 18 - Closeup Photographs, contains color photographs of closeups of flowers and everyday objects under different lighting conditions. These macrophotography photographs contain some surprising color combinations and textures. Lake of the Woods, Ontario, Canada Volume 19 - Lake of the Woods, contains color photographs taken while kayaking on the Lake near Kenora, Ontario, Canada. The Lake of the Woods has approximately 65,000 miles of shoreline and over 14,582 islands. It is 90 miles long and 55 miles wide. The wilderness around the region with its hundreds of pristine lakes has long been a paradise for fishermen and boaters. These photographs were taken in August, 2002. Kayaking Photographs Volume 20 - Kayaking Photographs, contains color photographs taken while kayaking in various places including Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island Sound, the Berkshire Mountains, the Ohio River, Lake Erie, and the Hudson River. Venice-Udine-Trieste, Italy Volume 21 - Venice-Udine-Trieste, contains color photographs taken in Venice, Udine and Trieste, Italy. Udine's main square, the Piazza della Liberta, contains the Loggia di San Giovanni (16th cent.), with a clock tower; the Gothic town hall (1457); and a lovely fountain (16th cent.). An early 16th century castle, the former seat of the Venetian governors now houses a museum of painting and numismatics and overlooks Udine. Trieste is an Italian port city located in the northeastern part of Italy on the border with Slovenia, overlooking the Gulf of Trieste at the corner of the Adriatic Sea about 80 miles east of Venice. At one time a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Trieste was united with the rest of Italy after the first world war. This volume also includes photographs taken at the Miramare Castle. The Miramare Castle was constructed in the mid-1800s for Archduke Maximillian of Habsburg, and was his home until he left to become the Emperor of Mexico. Set in beautifully landscaped grounds, the castle is now a popular museum and park. Visitors can visit several of Maximillian's rooms, all of which contain the original furniture commissioned by Maximillian. Ireland Volume 22 - Ireland, contains color photographs taken in Ireland. Photographs include the Cliffs of Moher, Dublin, Trinity College, West coast of Ireland, Boyne River and Newgrange. Newgrange is one of the world's most famous ancient monuments, built around 3150 B. C.