Kieron Connolly’s new book of photographs of more than 100 once-busy and often elegant buildings gives an idea of how the world might look if humankind disappeared. Here: Bodie, Mono County, California. Gold was discovered at Bodie in 1859 (just after the initial California gold rush) and it went from mining camp to boomtown. Its decline began in 1880, when word spread of new boomtowns elsewhere. The Standard Consolidated Mine closed in 1913, and four years later the Bodie Railway was abandoned. By 1940 the population was down to 40. Today, Bodie is maintained in a state of arrested decay as a visitor attraction. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

A model wears a floral headdress at the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower show in London, Britain, May 22, 2017. The prestigious Chelsea Flower Show, held annually since 1913 in the Royal Hospital Chelsea grounds, is open to the public from the 23rd to the 27th of May, 2017. (Photo by Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

A girl looks out from the window of a “La Sabana” tourist train in La Caro March 1, 2015. The “La Sabana” tourist train that runs through the capital was founded by Eduardo Rodriguez, a railway engineer. Rodriguez has worked on Colombia's railway system his whole life and now, with an air of nostalgia, transports thousands of tourists in renovated steam locomotives that he fixes in Bogota's Central Station which dates back to 1913. (Photo by Jose Miguel Gomez/Reuters)

Playful seals. The pair of playful seals swim around each other. Two passionate seals were captured on camera in a tender embrace by underwater photographer Robert Bailey, 50, near the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast, UK. (Photo by Robert Bailey/Medavia)

In this Thursday, April 16, 2015 photo provided by Robert MacFarlane, a raccoon climbs up a skyscraper in downtown Toronto. Social media was abuzz Thursday with the photo of the raccoon peering from between the metallic rungs of a crane 58 stories high. (Photo by Robert MacFarlane)

Sunrise over Haleakala Crater, Haleakala National Park, Maui, Hawaii on April 26th, 2011. (Photo by Robert Bush/Alamy Stock Photo)

Seven-year-old Mimi Meade winces from the sting as Dr. Richard Mulvaney inoculates her April 26, 1954 in McClean, Va., with the new Salk polio vaccine. Mrs. John Lucas, a registered nurse, holds Mimi's arm steady as she gets one of the first injections of the countrywide test. (Photo by Harvey Georges/AP Photo)

A woman takes a selfie photo by the “Friendship of Nations” fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre (VDNKh) in Moscow on October 5, 2023. The fountain was installed at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre (VDNKh), a trade show and amusement park, in 1954, with 16 gilded bronze sculptures of young women representing 16 republics of the USSR around the oval fountain bowl featuring a wheat sheaf. (Photo by Alexander Nemenov/AFP Photo)