As new book Soviet Ghosts shows, everyone loves an artfully shot post-communist ruin. But, asks Jamie Rann, what does this say about us — and about Russia?

A centuries-old Mexican church normally submerged in a reservoir is re-emerging amid a drought that has dropped water levels in the reservoir by 25 meters.

What are we to make of "ruin porn", the work of photographers and artists who aim to communicate the romantic frisson of run-down buildings?

Arkadiusz Podniesiński, a Polish photographer, takes a trip to Fukushima and documents what he finds 4 years after the tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster.

Interesting news from Russia

Sylvain Margaine has been photographing ‘forbidden places’ since 1998. He tells Fiona Macdonald about his haunting images of prisons, churches and mental asylums.

SS United States, decaying and moored at Philadelphia's Pier 84, is one of the last great ocean liners of the 20th century, facing an uncertain future.

It’s estimated that every year between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close down in the USA. In Europe, the statistics vary by country.

Abandoned Buildings at Cape Canaveral & Kennedy Space Center

If you just happen to stumble upon the dilapidated St. George’s Church in the Czech Republic, passing through the crumbling entrance to glance around at the shadowy interior, you might just be in for a surprise.

Nestled a midst rolling mountains and towering pines is the abandoned town of Kitsault in British Columbia, Canada. The town was erected in 1979 and has been deserted for the past 30 years. Kitsault was originally intended as a housing facility for the miners (and their families) who worked for the American Mining Corporation Phelps …

There will be no crowds at these abandoned malls this post-Thanksgiving shopping day.

Jan Stel (Purmerend, the Netherlands) is a self-taught Fine Art Photographer and Photoshop artist. Always a creative person, Jan was a pioneering artist in his youth, spraying Graffiti murals in the suburbs of Amsterdam…

For his project Restricted Areas, Danila Tkachenko photographed secret cities and abandoned rockets in the former USSR. He talks to BBC Culture.

Porn. Few words come with as many pre-loaded connotations and assumptions. So what are we to make of the rise of "ruin porn"? Should photos of urban decay brighten or darken our day?

Photographers love to explore abandoned amusement parks and many others love to look at those pictures and read about them. But one place you probably won't be seeing abandoned pictures of anytime soon is perhaps the world's most popular amusement -Disney World.Since we probably won't be seeing pictures like this in reality (at least not for a long time), DeviantArt user eledoremassis02 took the liberty of imagining the apocalyptic visions of the current happiest place on Earth.

Shuffling through ancient paint chips, dead leaves and empty bottles in an abandoned and dilapidated building, you turn a corner and register a human figure emerging from the darkness in a haze of flesh tones and pale fabric. It might take a moment to realize that it’s not a real person, but rather a painting in the style of the old masters, rendered right there on the gritty wall like an heirloom left behind when the place was vacated.

The Art of Abandonment

The Art of Abandonment