Kourtney Roy makes eerie self-portraits in desolate yet dramatic locations – with wigs and wardrobe straight out of 1950s melodrama. In these shots, from her “Enter as Fiction – California” series, she plays characters caught in desolate, often abandoned settings. (Photo by Kourtney Roy/Galerie Catherine et André Hug/The Guardian)

“24.27 N, 81.44 W. These coordinates mark the spot of the final resting place of an old brave soldier, the USS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. In 2009 it underwent a complete change when the creaky steel monster became a mystical bearer of secrets. In May of that year, the Vandenberg was lowered down into the darkness of the ocean off the coast of Florida to become an artificial reef, where it would dwell in rigor mortis at a depth of 130 feet. This lively, animate, secretive nothingness, this menacing, wild emptiness would haunt and seduce the renowned Austrian photographer and passionate diver Andreas Franke...”. – The Sinking World (Photo by Andreas Franke)

Visitors to the Nightmare Fears Factory in Niagara Falls, Canada, are obliged to navigate their way round the supposedly haunted building in total darkness while live actors jump out of them. The Nightmare Fears Factory team have been using hidden cameras to take pictures of their guests' terrified reactions, which they've then posted on the company's Facebook page. And it turns out they're all pretty funny. (Photo by Nightmare Fears Factory)

Potoos (family Nyctibiidae) are a group of near passerine birds related to the nightjars and frogmouths. They are sometimes called Poor-me-ones, after their haunting calls. There are seven species in one genus, Nyctibius, in tropical Central and South America.
These are nocturnal insectivores which lack the bristles around the mouth found in the true nightjars. They hunt from a perch like a shrike or flycatcher. During the day they perch upright on tree stumps, camouflaged to look like part of the stump. The single spotted egg is laid directly on the top of a stump.

When Colin Garratt went to photograph the traditional sentinels of the British countryside, he found they ranged from the dapper to the downright sinister. “They are not from the anaesthetised world of the craft fair”, says Colin Garratt, “but are the direct descendants of the ancient spectres which have haunted the landscape for centuries”. The Scarecrow Exhibition is at Geddes Gallery, London, from 25 to 30 March. (Photo by Colin Garratt)

A life-size interactive inflatable sculpture of Stonehenge called “Sacrilege 2012” by English contemporary artist Jeremy Deller on display as part of the “Inflation!” exhibition curated by Mobile M + on April 24, 2013 in Hong Kong. The inflatable artwork is one of six on display as part of the exhibition which is open from April 25, 2013 until June 9, 2013. (Photo by Jessica Hromas)

A woman looks out of a dusty window after boarding a bus to be transported to see the casket of Nelson Mandela at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday December 11, 2013. On Thursday, December 5, 2013, Mandela died at the age of 95. (Photo by Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)

Cassie Douthwaite (L) and Stuart Abercrombie from Preston pose for a portrait in Brighton, southern England February 16, 2013. Brighton hosts “The Brighton Tattoo Convention” this weekend, an annual two-day gathering which attracts visitors, performers and tattoo artists from around the world. Photograph taken February 16, 2013. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)