A guard secures gates of a catfish farm visited by a group of foreign reporters in Pyongyang, North Korea April 17, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

A guard dog in the suburbs of Yakutsk, Russia, considered to be the coldest city in the world, January 2014. (Photo by Amos Chapple/REX Features)

Policemen stand guard during a protest in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, July 11, 2022. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

A starling jealously guards a seed station in the back garden of the photographer’s Michigan home in January 2024. (Photo by Lisa Cavanary/Solent News)

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)

Young female Ibex on the fork of Disteis (2,200 m), near the top of the Jof di Montasio (Friuli, Italy). (Photo by Stefano Zocca)

Two female soldiers have their picture taken by an army colleague at Mangyongdae. (Photo by Gavin John/Mediadrumworld.com)