Photojournalist Penny Coleman's Village Elders -- as in New York City's Greenwich Village -- is a book of portraits in black-and-white photographs and in words of older adults in the Big Apple's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. Handsomely printed on coated stock, the 141-page volume is available in hardback from the University of Illinois Press.

"The collection of faces and oral histories I have gathered form a collage of exquisite and intimate details of what it was like 'back then' and how it is today for those who lived through the social revolutions of the 20th century," Coleman says. "The largely uncharted history that emerges constitutes a sort of family album for a community that does not, for the most part, pass on its heritage through ties of blood."

The book grew out of an exhibition originally created as a centerpiece of the 20th anniversary celebration of Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE) in New York City in 1998. Details of some of the photographs from the exhibit appear below. Click on the thumbnails to view the full image.

A traveling version of the exhibit, featuring 20 of Coleman's portraits, is available from SAGE. For information on booking the show for your area, contact Cara Palladino at SAGE, 305 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10001; (212) 741-2247; sageusa@aol.com. You also can see more of the exhibition via the Net at www.sageusa.org.