One minute and four seconds in London, 1904. Birkbeck College professor Ian Christie rediscovered this footage in an archive in Canberra, shot for a travelogue by film pioneer Charles Urban.
posted by digaman on Oct 24, 2008 - 67 comments

Keith Thorne has stunningly colored pictures of decaying urban spaces on his Flickr stream, including some taken at an abandoned German military hospital that once treated Adolf Hitler. A few pictures feature himself. Via.
posted by Hollow on Aug 4, 2008 - 26 comments

Urban Exploring. Recently: Sanatorio Popolare Cantonale di Piotta. Sinteranlage, Duisburg. Atomschutz Kurfürstendamm, Berlin (flash). (Previously.)
posted by Soup on Nov 28, 2007 - 4 comments

"First we kill the architects..." Photographer Danny Lyon [1, 2, 3, 4] offers ten suggestions for New York City. Suggestion #6: "Leave the World Trade Center excavation exactly as it is and use the space as a freshwater pond planted with pink, white, and yellow lilies..." His essay is only one of many from names you'll recognize in a book called Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. An associated exhibition opened yesterday [museum, NYT review]. Is New York City moving in the right direction? Is your city? [via] [more inside]
posted by salvia on Sep 26, 2007 - 19 comments

Photography of the unexpected and neglected architecture. Romain Meffre and Yves Marchand travel the world photographing "singular and surprising buildings of all domains," mostly 19th and 20th century urban and industrial architecture. Don't miss the photos of Detroit (under Projects), or more of Marchand's stunning work at his personal site.
posted by melissa may on Jan 15, 2007 - 24 comments

Joe Nishizawa's new photojournalism book, Deep Inside, is a visual exploration of the amazing, highly mechanized world under Japan's urban areas. This brief interview with the author is accompanied by several interesting photos.
posted by jonson on Jul 24, 2006 - 18 comments

Naked in the Naked City. Artist Miru Kim takes curiously compelling nude photos of herself in gritty and deserted urban settings like sewers, subway stations, railroad tracks, tunnels, abandoned factories and asylums. (via)
posted by CunningLinguist on Jun 18, 2006 - 98 comments

Post No Bills. At the intersection of life and advertising one may unexpectedly find art, or at least humor. Henry Ho shines a light on it. (42 pages. Or view all thumbnails together)
posted by taz on Jul 29, 2005 - 15 comments

Cop shoots from patrol car. Beautiful and fascinating photos taken by an on-duty police officer in southwest Atlanta. Thumbnails are cropped, click to see full photo. (via things)
posted by cali on Apr 20, 2005 - 23 comments

Street photography. Beautiful photos of urban life and decay.
posted by cmonkey on Dec 9, 2004 - 11 comments

Shinsato: Great vacant night cityscapes of Osaka and Tokyo.
posted by hama7 on Jan 2, 2004 - 11 comments

Harlem 1900-1940, a site full of pictures and history. The scope of this portfolio is Harlem from the years 1900-1940. Various elements of the history of the urban experience in Harlem's early days as the Cultural Capital of African Americans are represented here by graphic and photographic images from the Schomburg Center collection.
posted by Ufez Jones on Sep 8, 2003 - 3 comments

Explore the abandoned - all things we build must pass into an inevitable and steady deterioration. Thanks to those who chronicle civilization's entropy and put it on the web, because it's mad fun to watch.
posted by jdaura on Mar 18, 2003 - 9 comments

Ruavista explores city streets and urban life through all kinds of signs: street graphics, architecture, street sounds. Put simply, a fantastic resource for urban photography.
posted by chill on Nov 28, 2002 - 3 comments

Graffiti with lights, long exposures and a bunch of cameras. ...beautiful stuff.
posted by tomplus2 on May 14, 2002 - 9 comments

Things Fall Apart. Particularly in urban environments. Individually, the moments of entropy-in-action caught here may not mean much; collectively, they recite a visual poem about decay. A slightly melancholy site for you insomniacs out there. (By the way, you have to scroll right to get to the thumbnails.)
posted by BT on Apr 3, 2002 - 8 comments

20 Pictures by Boogie at Artcoup. Great urban photography. #18 is um...special. Must be seen.
posted by Su on Mar 8, 2002 - 37 comments