Photographs

With the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing just two days away, NASA on Friday released the sharpest images ever taken of astronaut work sites on the moon, showing hardware and soil disturbances left behind by the 12 Americans who visited the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. The images, taken over the last few weeks by cameras aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, include some of the 10-foot-tall landing structure called the descent stage.

Massachusetts photographers have unearthed the only known image of legendary brain-injury patient Phineas Gage, a daguerreotype showing the former railroad worker sitting in repose and holding the nearly 4-foot-long iron rod that pierced his brain without killing him.

A male model wearing a kilt of black vinyl strips, a red belt with a gold buckle and little else is flexing his muscles amid fake oil derricks and Roman columns in a photo studio. All chiseled pectorals and tanned thighs, he is playing Captain Moroni, a battlefield hero in the Book of Mormon who rallied troops with the Title of Liberty banner. Chad Hardy, who is running the photo shoot, adjusts the model's kilt. Captain Moroni lifts his chin, grips a sword and hoists the banner.

Rising over the battered surface of the moon, Earth loomed in a shimmering arc covered in a swirling skin of clouds. The image, taken in 1966 by NASA's robotic probe Lunar Orbiter 1, presented a stunning juxtaposition of planet and moon that no earthling had ever seen before. It was dubbed the Picture of the Century. "The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen," remembered Keith Cowing, who saw it as an 11-year-old and credited it with eventually luring him to work for NASA.

California corrections officials released a photograph taken Wednesday of aging convicted mass murderer Charles Manson, replete with receding hairline, fading forehead swastika carving and a thick, heavily graying beard.

Los Angeles Police Department officials on Friday were interviewing officers and scouring electronic records amid growing suspicion that someone inside the department leaked or sold to a celebrity website a photo of the singer Rihanna that depicted injuries to her face she suffered during an alleged assault by her boyfriend.

Looking at pictures of celebrities strolling down the red carpet is all well and good. But Celebuzz thinks it would be so much better if you could see them up close -- pores and pupils close. In advance of the Oscars, the Los Angeles celebrity website ( www.celebuzz.com) on Wednesday launched a feature that allows you to click on a celebrity photo for a mega-zoom. There are more than 1,200 celebrity news sites in the U.S.

If Anais Nin had a Nikon D3 and every celebrity in town on her BlackBerry, her photos would probably look a lot like those Deborah Anderson shot for her new book, "Room 23." Anderson, a photographer whose distinctive sensuality is located somewhere between classic French erotica and Helmut Newton -- is releasing a hefty coffee-table volume today filled with an impressive list of stars: George Clooney, Lindsay Lohan, Kid Rock, Sharon Stone, James Blunt, Cindy Crawford, Elton John.

Amber LaPointe's introduction to one of the country's greatest tourist attractions came from small square pictures on a white wheel. "It was like you could look into a world away," said the 28-year-old from Toledo, Ohio. "My only image of the Grand Canyon was from the View-Master." The iconic reels of tourist attractions, often packaged with a clunky plastic viewer and first sold to promote 3-D photography, are ending their 70-year run after years of diminishing sales.