This work, culled from the archives of The Mariners' Museum, features 100 historical photographs depicting the relationships of mariners with their vessels and the sea. Each photograph chronicles a fragment of the mariner's experience over the past 200 years shipbuilding, and the making of a wooden skiff, commercial fishing and whaling, amateur sailing, deep-sea diving, and naval encounters. In his introduction, Szarkowski shares his artistic rationale for selecting the particular images that appear in the book. The mix is eclectic - some are the work of photographers, while for others the photographer was a chronicler with a camera and an eye for composition. Richard Benson applies electronic and other techniques to the archival photographs. His essays unify the image and story in time and place, of historical, societal, and individual meaning.