RALEIGH - The phone rings at dusk, just as the street lamps begin to glow and the windows of bars and restaurants glint with activity.

"Looks like it's getting dark out," says the voice on the other end, which belongs to John Morris. "Let's go."

We meet and begin hiking up Martin Street, Morris toting a digital camera and a collapsible tripod. He is looking for the unremarkable: office buildings, slivers of alleys, people who work the late shift, the whole urban backdrop.

Morris has been blogging since last summer. His blog -- Goodnight, Raleigh! (www.goodnightraleigh.com) -- is essentially photographs, which makes him a phlogger.

He describes himself as a moth drawn to light. Since he moved from Asheville to Raleigh about four years ago, he has roamed downtown at night to capture the ordinary scenes that daytime office workers and nighttime habitués don't usually notice. Goodnight, Raleigh! documents a landscape in transition, with a run-down past and an under-construction future, in increments not typically covered by the daily newspaper.

Morris, 27, has a pleasant face and an agreeable manner. His brown hair is close-cropped, and over a thin frame he wears a gray sweat shirt, a button-up cotton shirt, cargo pants and athletic shoes. His demeanor is nonjudgmental, and that comes across in his blog.

"It's not meant to be art," he says, "but to give people a good picture of the area and, at the same time, be composed well. ... If I can capture it in a unique way, take something boring and make it somewhat interesting."

We stop at the corner of Martin and Fayetteville streets, where Morris shoots the blue lights on the front of the WTVD building. Off to the side is the downtown post office. The scene reminds him of Piccadilly in London, where he was inspired to start Goodnight, London! after his work took him there. Morris is a Web developer for Lulu, an online self-publishing service based in Morrisville.

Mostly he shoots buildings, but sometimes he'll venture into a bar and with permission photograph the people inside.

We round the corner onto Hargett Street, where Morris notices the 94-year-old Raleigh Furniture Co. building. It has a new exterior and a recently added metal stairway on the side. Morris scrambles halfway up the stairs.

"See, this view wasn't here three weeks ago," Morris says, pointing his camera across the street to a club, where the doorman pats down two patrons.

Morris says he rarely approaches people -- they always come up to him. But he has never felt intimidated or at risk.

Once three panhandlers walked up to him in Moore Square, and he pretended to be deaf by pulling out his notepad and writing, "I can't hear you," which prompted the men to talk louder.

For pictures he posts on his blog, he often includes a history of the building. When he can't find out much through research, he asks his readers if they know the details, and often they do.

Morris learned photography on a bookstore couch, where he read everything he could find on the subject. Then he started a Web site called Dark Photography to pass along advice on taking pictures at night.

On Blount Street, we come across an old set of steps and two pillars that serve as a gateway to a large, empty lot.

"Huh. I wonder what used to be there," Morris says. "I'm always trying to get stuff like that -- stairways to nowhere."