Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station experiences months of darkness. The sun dips below the horizon on March 21, after which follows several weeks of twilight before complete darkness results. Photo taken on June 25, 2009. (National Science Foundation/Jeremy Johnson)

The Clementinum (Klementinum in Czech) is a historic complex of buildings in Prague. Until recently the complex hosted the National, University and Technical libraries, the City Library also being located nearby on Mariánské Náměstí. The Technical library and the Municipal library have moved to the Prague National Technical Library at Technická 6 since 2009. It is currently in use as the National Library of the Czech Republic. In 2005, the Czech National Library received the UNESCO Jikji prize (Memory of the World).

Though finger painting is normally associated with tempera paint and messy classroom art projects, Iris Scott is quickly changing what "finger painting" brings to mind. Wearing surgical gloves and painting with high grade oils, Iris achieves a whirlwind of crisscrossing color strokes and a vibrant impressionistic style. Since 2009, when Iris first began finger painting in Taiwan, her artistic career has caught her by surprise. Grateful for a new global market of online art collectors, Iris has shipped to Dubai, Ireland, and all over the USA.

British South American Airways hostess Mary Guthrie with a pair of pineapples, on the return of the Lancastrian airliner 'Star Dust' to Heathrow Airport after a test-flight to Buenos Aires, 15th January 1946

British comedian and director Charles Chaplin (1889–1977) and actress Paulette Goddard (1911–1990), to whom he was married for seven years, star in the comedy “Modern Times”, directed by Chaplin himself. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1936

“24.27 N, 81.44 W. These coordinates mark the spot of the final resting place of an old brave soldier, the USS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. In 2009 it underwent a complete change when the creaky steel monster became a mystical bearer of secrets. In May of that year, the Vandenberg was lowered down into the darkness of the ocean off the coast of Florida to become an artificial reef, where it would dwell in rigor mortis at a depth of 130 feet. This lively, animate, secretive nothingness, this menacing, wild emptiness would haunt and seduce the renowned Austrian photographer and passionate diver Andreas Franke...”. – The Sinking World (Photo by Andreas Franke)

To produce the images that convey his fatalistic and ironic approach to life, tinged with hope, he needed the environment and knowledge of Mother Russia, oiled with a bit of bribery to certain circus trainers. Enter the Great Russian Bear, the personification of Russia for the last several centuries, onto center stage and into his studio. The bear is recognized as both brutish and cute – Misha was the mascot for the 1980 Olympic Games – and has remained a symbol of Russia since Tsarist times. In 2009 it is the symbol of the United Russia Party.

“I bought my first dlsr camera in 2009 may. The first part of my life is gone but the other i dedicate to photography. If i try to imagine myself, i saw someone on the road, who walking straight to the light. This kind of light is the photography and the post-processing in my life. My pictures express the feelings, moods what i felt under my trip in the last few years”. – Ildiko Neer

Photo: “Path to the shine”, 2011. (Photo by Ildiko Neer)