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 Syrian rebel walks past Sham 2, a homemade armored vehicle, in Bishqatin, Syria, on December 8, 2012. From a distance it looks rather like a big rusty metal box but closer inspection reveals a homemade armored vehicle waiting to be deployed. Sham II, named after ancient Syria, is built from the chassis of a car and touted by rebels as “100 percent made in Syria”. (Photo by Herve Bar/AFP Photo)

A Soyuz MS-11 rocket carrying Russian, American and Canadian astronauts takes off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on December 3, 2018 before reached orbit later, the first manned mission since a failed launch in October. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)

An employee of the National Park Service takes a selfie with President Barack Obama, left, in the background meeting with the crowd after a tour of Everglades National Park on Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22, 2015, in Florida. Obama used the visit to warn of the damage that climate change is already inflicting on the nation's environmental treasures. (Photo by Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)

A girl who suffers from hearing and speech disorders reacts to the camera at a rehabilitation centre supported by Bhopal Medical Appeal, for children who were born with mental and physical disabilities, in Bhopal November 11, 2014. The rehabilitation centre only treats families they believe have been affected by the Union Carbide gas leak 30 years ago. Human rights groups say that thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste remain buried underground, and the government has conceded it is contaminated. There has, however, been no long-term epidemiological research which conclusively proves that birth defects are directly related to the drinking of the contaminated water. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

Hungarian pilot and European champion Zoltan Veres flies under the oldest Hungarian bridge, the “Lanchid” (Chain Bridge) with his “MXS” type plane on May 1, 2014 during a Red Bull flying and car show around the Danube River of Budapest downtown. (Photo by Attila Kisbenedek/AFP Photo)

American media personality and socialite Kourtney Kardashian was in the middle of shooting her Hulu show, The Kardashians in the first decade of February 2022. (Photo by Kourtney Kardashian/Instagram)