Troy Paiva's Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration is a stunning collection of "light-painted" night photography from a variety of modern ruins: ghost towns, abandoned mass-transit stations, an airplane graveyard and others. Paiva places dramatic colored lights in the scene to bring out its essential spookiness, something that is often missing from photos of glorious old ruins. The book includes an intro from BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh and copious notes on the different sites ("TOADS" -- temporary, obsolete, abandoned and derelict spaces) that Paiva and his fellow urban explorers visited (Paiva also includes colorful, curmudgeonly grumps about the damned film location and set people who sex up his ruins by adding extra graffiti and so on). You can see more of Paiva's work on his site, Lost America, which chronicles his serious nighttime infiltration habit. Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration See also: Book: Night Visions: The Art of Urban Exploration...

Mimivirus on Flickr - Photo Sharing!.

Top: The Riviera lobby in 1957, Bottom: The same view in 2007 Peter Moruzzi sent me a copy of his gorgeous new book, called Havana Before Castro. It's loaded with photos of the beautiful mid-century architecture of Havana's resorts, casinos, and restaurants. On his website for the book, Moruzzi has added some “then and now” images to his Havana site. Chris Nichols says: "It’s really the most freakish time machine place I’ve ever seen. I mean...the art! the chairs! The silverware! It’s all still there. So weird and wonderful." Havana before Castro...

Last weekend, I was one of the guests of honor at 3PiCon in Springfield, MA, along with Randall "XKCD" Munroe, who once infamously depicted me as blogging from a hot-air balloon in cape and goggles. This has become a motif for me, so that wherever I go, people give me capes and/or goggles. I brought along a set and wore them to our final panel together on Sunday, and Dan Noe, the Pi-Con photographer, got some nice shots of the event. 3Pi-Con (Thanks, Dan!)...

Synchiropus splendidus (Herre, 1927) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!.

Cardiomyocytes (red) and fibroblasts (green) isolated from chicken embryo heart. Heart cells on Flickr - Photo Sharing!.

Flickr user Brittnybadger has a drop-dead gorgeous set of disassembled household appliances, saying, "this was my senior thesis project at the hartford art school this past year...i took apart used cooking/cleaning appliances, and arranged their interior parts very systematically on a white sheet of bristol board. my intention was to explore the hidden "brains" of these appliances; allowing us to view these everyday objects from a new perspective." disassembled household appliances (via Kottke)...

Joi Ito's got a new book coming out -- a collection of photos of people he knows through the free culture/copyfight movements. They're lovely portrait shots and they're all CC Attribution licensed for a broad range of uses, creating a pool of good stock photos of people from the movement. Each photo is accompanied by an essay from the subject (I'm one of them), making the book an interesting read, too. They're doing three editions, two limited editions and a regular release, all to be published in the fall. FREESOULS: Captured and Released by Joi Ito...

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: mutated animals. I love the adorable cryptozoological critters! Link...

Wired's current reader photo challenge is to send in pics of cityscapes that epitomize your town. There are some beautiful little urban valentines in this lot -- I love cities on general principles, and it's pretty clear to me that these photos are shot with a lot of affection. Shown here, by Kristoffer N's "Mumbai India." Link...