A participant of the Castle Party festival poses for picture as a man walks past in Bolkow, southwestern Poland, July 16, 2015. The annual festival features around 50 musicians and artists playing on various stage Gothic rock and other styles of the dark music subculture. Outside Germany, it is one of the biggest festival with this genre of music, the event attracts regular international audience of up to 5000, the organizers said. (Photo by Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

Jonny Joo, 23, visits derelict malls, stations, towers and other places because they remind him of Silent Hill – a psychological horror video game which was made into a film. “When I first started exploring places, so many would remind me of the game. It was a world I was kind of obsessed with because of how dark and eerie it looked”, Joo said. His book, titled “Empty Spaces”, will feature 116 images and is being released this week. Photo: A glass-walled corridor at Cleveland's abandoned aquarium in Ohio. (Photo by Jonny Joo/Barcroft Media)

Three-year-old tawny owl, found abandoned by its owner, is agoraphobic. Multi-skilled Bertie also likes to help Mr Middleton make a cup of tea – and is fond of sitting on top of the kettle. Mr Middleton said the domesticated owl, which he adopted after it was left abandoned on the ground, hates the outdoors. The domestic owl casts a watchful eye over Mr Middleton's handy work. The creature was found by the organic farmer abandoned on the ground.

“That’s the only way to show how we really are” – sweaty, exhausted, but happy, actress and singer Juliette Lewis said about the idea of a photo collection capturing musicians moments after a concert. Photographer Matthias Willi and journalist Olivier Joliat have persuaded about 100 bands to take part in their “The Moment After the Show” project since 2005. Photo: Iggy Pop. (Photo by Matthias Willi/Olivier Joliat/The Moment After The Show)

At the beginning of the 20th century, Edward S. Curtis set out to document what he saw as a disappearing race: the Native American. From 1907 to 1930, Curtis took more than 2,000 photos of 80 tribes stretching from the Great Plains to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He then published and sold these photos, along with narrative text, in 20 volumes of work known as “The North American Indian”. It is one of the most significant collections of its kind, “probably the most important photographic document of its age and its topic,” said Jeffrey Garrett, associate university librarian for Special Libraries at Northwestern University. (Photo by Edward S. Curtis)

Few people haven’t heard about the ancient city of Persepolis, which lies at the foot of the Mountain of Mercy (Kuh-I-Rahmat). In ancient times, Persepolis was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. Regretfully, it was burned by the Greeks in 330 BC after they looted the immense treasure of this city. It is said that Greeks needed 5,000 camels and 20,000 mules to carry all the treasures from Persepolis. The only thing of Persepolis that has survived the wear of time is the ginormous stone terrace 530 by 330 meters adorned by elaborate stone sculptures. It is amazing how intricately detailed some of the sculptures are, despite the fact that they were created many centuries ago.

At least 43 people have been killed and more than 200 others wounded in an attack by Somali Islamist militants on a Nairobi shopping mall, the Kenyan Red Cross said on Sunday. The Somali Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on the Kenyan capital’s Westgate mall, which is frequented by Westerners as well as Kenyans. Several foreigners, including a Canadian diplomat, were among the dead. Photo: Security officers secure an area inside the Westgate Shopping Centre. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

The Mano de Desierto is a large-scale sculpture of a hand located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, 75 km to the south of the city of Antofagasta, on the Panamerican Highway. The nearest point of reference is the “Ciudad Empresarial La Negra” (La Negra Business City). The sculpture was constructed by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal at an altitude of 1,100 meters above sea level. Irarrázabal used the human figure to express emotions like injustice, loneliness, sorrow and torture. Its exaggerated size is said to emphasize human vulnerability and helplessness. The work has a base of iron and cement, and stands 11 metres (36 ft) tall. Funded by Corporación Pro Antofagasta, a local booster organization, the sculpture was inaugurated on March 28, 1992.