Competitors gather backstage as they prepare to take part in the All Ireland Irish Dancing Championships on November 2, 2016 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The championships take place at the Waterfront Hall over the course of six days with winners qualifying for the World Irish Dancing Finals which will take place in Dublin next year. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Monaco's Princess Charlotte Casiraghi arrives to attend a mass at the Saint Nicholas Cathedral during the celebrations marking Monaco's National Day, on November 19, 2016 in Monaco. (Photo by Valery Hache/Reuters)

People eat sushi off the body of a model at an opening event of a bar in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, August 22, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

In this Friday, January 9, 2015 photo, bathhouse worker Omid Riahi, 39, scrubs a man to remove dead skin, at the Ghebleh public bathhouse, in Tehran, Iran. The steamy air and curved tiled walls of Iran's famed public bathhouses, some rinsing and massaging patrons for hundreds of years, slowly may wash away as interest in them wanes. The bathhouses, known as “hammams” in Persian, find themselves in rough financial times as modern conveniences now allow showers and baths in most homes across the Islamic Republic. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

(L-R) Edmea Pereira, 69, Elsa Rodrigues, 61, and Osmidio Conde, 71, take part in their surf class in Santos, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, March 16, 2016. When work is up, surf is up in Brazil, as a group of retired citizens take to the waves in keep-fit, keep-young sessions at a surf school in the city of Santos. The classes are run for free, three times a week at the Cisco Arana school, which aims to prove that age is just a number. (Photo by Nacho Doce/Reuters)

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.

People walk near a collapsed mosque following an earthquake in Meuredu, Pidie Jaya in the northern province of Aceh, Indonesia December 7, 2016. (Photo by Irwansyah Putra/Reuters/Antara Foto)

Federico Babina illustrates the imaginary architecture of movie director-designed homes
all images courtesy of Federico Babina.