Only the most intrepid urban explorers cross the tattered ruins of the old Iron Curtain to endure the excessive bureaucracy, military paranoia and freezing winds of the East to hunt for the ghosts of an empire. Rebecca Litchfield is one who couldn’t resist the haunting allure of the ruins of the Soviet Union.

“Cosplay, short for “costume play”, is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture centred around role play. A broader use of the term "cosplay" applies to any costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cultural context”. – Wikipedia. (Photo by Luffy Monkey D.)

Talented French artist, Pierre Beteille, is skillful in manipulation of portraits (specially his own self portraits) using Photoshop. This is how he describes himself: “I am not a photographer or an artist, I just make images… I shoot very average or even bad photos that I try to improve thanks to Photoshop”…

Photo: “En attendant d'avoir des balles”...., 2007 (Photo by Pierre Beteille)

Clay Lipsky has created a great series called Atomic Overlook. The project takes terribly boring scenic shots and combines them with some exciting nuclear testing. “Tourists will line up for anything and I always found humor in vacation destinations that are nothing but a bunch of people looking into a great abyss”, he says. “I understand the allure of a beautiful landscape, but as the world’s population grows so do the lines to view the “nothingness”. Atomic Overlook flips the script on that and gives new purpose to those suntanned masses”. (Photo by Clay Lipsky)

Untitled. (Photo by Lee Jeffries). P.S. The person in the photo – poured-out our yard keeper Volodya (it has no surnames, therefore it's simple – Volodya). It too the homeless, and too the good person (it's visible according to eyes). Looks after stray dogs and cats, every day feeds crowd of pigeons in a yard... I am on friendly terms with it. =) (Forgive please me for bad English – Translate.ru very much tried to inform to you my scanty thought).

“Mount Hua, or Hua Shan, or Xiyue located near the city of Huayin in Shaanxi province, about 120 kilometres (75 mi) east of Xi'an. It is one of China's Five Great Mountains, and has a long history of religious significance. Originally classified as having three peaks, in modern times the mountain is classified as five main peaks, of which the highest is the South Peak at 2,154.9 metres (7,070 ft)”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Trip to Xi'an 西安. (Photo by Grant Robinson)