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 men play basketball on an improvised court wedged between a construction site and the shells of once grand colonial homes in Havana, July 20, 2015. As much as the young in Cuba welcome political opening and economic reform, such changes are unlikely to filter down to their lives anytime soon. (Photo by Meridith Kohut/The New York Times)

Student protestors, including one girl with a camera, struggle with soldiers from the Chinese Army, the PLA. Tiananmen Square, 1989. (Photo by Jeff Widener/Associated Press)

Pakistani brides attend a mass marriage ceremony in Karachi late March 26, 2013. Some 110 couples participated in the mass wedding ceremony organised by a local charity welfare trust Al Ghousia. (Photo by Asif Hassan/AFP Photo)

In spring sunsunshine the “Out of Sync” art installation is unveiled on a grass meadow at Somerset House on March 15, 2012 in London, England. Chilean artist Fernando Casasempere hand crafted the 10,000 clay flowers that dominate the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court. The installation is open to the public at Somerset House from March 16th to April 27th 2012. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images for Somerset House Trust)

A pair of giant pandas play in their enclosure at the Beijing Zoo on June 5, 2012 in Beijing, China. With an estimated 1,600 living in the wild, the endangered giant panda dwell in a few mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. (Photo by Lintao Zhang)