In the realm of personal transformations, it has to be one of the most startling: To create a convincing illusion that a man is a woman or a woman a man. In fact, it takes Forrest Chaplin and Cory Bak about four hours every Friday night to accomplish it. But for these drag queens, it's a neccessary burden. The look, the walk, the dress and the hair has to be just right. "It doesn't matter is it's an audience one or 100," says Back, who performs as Nina D'nae at Snappers Nightclub of Naples. "We give them our all." video, photos & story »

Maybe you still use it now and then. Or perhaps it's gathering dust on some shelf in the garage or waiting in a box, ready for your next yard sale. Your Polaroid. Brownies and Instamatics were fine, but no other camera gave the shooter the immediacy, the intimacy and the elation of reproducing life in their hand. So, Polaroids likely surfaced at all the great and pedestrian moments of your life. Graduations, vacations, breakfast. Most important, anyone could do it. You became an artist, a family historian, a memory maker in a click. Polaroid truly was the everyman camera. go to special section »

» video/slideshow | » photo gallery 1 | » photo gallery 2 | » video interviews

Since January, CCSO investigators have shut down 23 grow houses and seized an estimated $3.9 million in plants. View growhouse busts all over South Florida and read details of arrests from Broward County to Orlando on our interactive map. go to interactive map »

The Naples Daily News asked readers to help us build an interactive map of Mother's Day greetings from around Southwest Florida and you responded! We received Mother's Day messages from all over the United States, including Louisiana, Arizona, Tennessee, Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia and Missouri, as well as locations on Florida's East Coast. go to interactive map »

MORE: VIDEO: 71-year-old single parent Katherine Smith | » full story
MORE: VIDEO: Southwest Florida's mother of the arts | » full story

With a runoff election fast approaching in Bonita Springs, mayoral candidates Jay Arend and Ben Nelson both said they have what it takes to lead the city over the next four years. The two candidates had a chance to make that case Thursday, March 20, 2008 answering questions in a forum held in the offices of the Bonita Daily News and The Banner. watch the debate »

In ink and flesh and service, seven men and women paid tribute to war, to peace, to love and to never forgetting. The military tattoo.

John Stebbins measures out his son's daily dose of medicine and sucks the concoction into a plastic syringe. The 45-year-old can't read the labels on the bottles Ñ or really anything else for that matter Ñ but Stebbins has managed to deliver the right medicine at the right time for the past nine years. Against the odds, a father of twins with cerebral palsy proves love is all you need to make a happy home. interactive feature » | full story »

A Daily News special report on the state of the Florida panther. As subdivisions in Florida multiply, so do panthers' problems. Development sprawling eastward from Naples encroaches on habitat that was once the Florida panther's range. Check out a collection of photos and videos highlighting the endangered animal. interactive feature » | full story »

Experience the past, the present and the future of FGCU on our interactive timeline. Read coverage from the 1990s about the search for land to build the university, watch slideshows and see videos. Fully interactive. Right on your desktop. interactive timeline »

What was once just a tomato field is now holy land. What was once just a building is now a sacred place. Ave Maria and the Roman Catholic Church joined in late March in a 1,500-year-old ceremony that dedicated the town's 100-foot, $24 million landmark as a church and made official the link between the new community and its inspiration. interactive feature » | More coverage in our Ave Maria special section »

One day that lives on forever. By land, by air and by sea, soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy on June6, 1944, initiating widespread liberation and leaving a lifelong impact on the young men who fought. This three-chapter series profiles ten Collier County veterans and reflects on their involvement in the famous invasion. interactive feature »

Visual Journalist Michel Fortier follows the journey of Jim Melton and John Barrett, both Naples residents and Vietnam Veterans, as they return to Vietnam to face the past.interactive feature »

Arthur Hills says designing a golf course is comparable to writing a book. If that’s the case, a Hills design would be considered a classic. And Hills might be compared to Mark Twain, Harper Lee or C.S. Lewis. His latest masterpiece, The TPC at Treviso Bay in East Naples, is nothing but a bunch of empty pages right now. The outline of the design is completed. But the story has yet to be told. Follow the process of building a championship course - from the ground up - in our exclusive series. Get photos, videos and exclusive reports from golfers, architects and builders. go to special section »

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Copies of most staff photographs which appear in the Daily News and on naplesnews.com photos are available for purchase. If you'd like to buy a photo, simply click on the photo and go to the "Buy now" option below the photo. Please note that our photographs are copyright the Daily News and associated publications and are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced in ANY way without the consent of the Naples Daily News.

Check out some of the work from our crew of amazing video journalists. Click the link above to go to a full archive of ALL our videos. You can search by topic, find the most-popular, most-commented and most-emailed videos and more! Head right to the archive at http://www.naplesnews.com/videos/

• Surveillance video of store robbery
• SWAT team in East Naples
• Studio 55: Afternoon News Update
• Man finds bolt in soup
• Studio 55: Morning News Update

Meet Our Videographers
• Michelle Cassell » | Manuel Martinez » | Matt Clark » | Vonna Keomanyvong »
• Carrie Wise » | Heather Harkins » | Nick Kreuger » | Katy Bishop »
• Quentin Roux » | Judy Lutz » | Chuck Curry » | Wasim Ahmad »

• PART 1: Looking Back at Donna
  A look back at Hurricane Wilma in 1960
• PART 2: Wilma's Effects
  A look back at Hurricane Wilma in 2005
• PART 3: Predicting the Perfect Storm
  National Hurricane Director Bill Proenza gives his forecast for the 2007 season.
• PART 4: Protecting Home and Property
  How to protect your home and property from destructive winds.
• PART 5: The Way Out
  Emergency Management Director, Rick Zyvoloski talks about what procedures to take during a hurricane evacuation.
• PART 6: If You Stay, Be Prepared
  What you need to be prepared for a hurricane.
• PART 7: Surviving the Storm
  How to hunker down when a hurricane threatens.
• PART 8: Aftermath & Recovery
  What you need to know after a hurricane hits.