Sandy Bell stands with her golden doodle dog Ozzy looking out at the golden sunrise breaking through the tree on a cold and frosty morning at Bowden Loch near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, South Scotland on February 7, 2025. (Photo by Phil Wilkinson/The Times)

A person poses on the track during a fashion competition at the Durban July horse racing event in Durban, South Africa, July 2, 2016. (Photo by Rogan Ward/Reuters)

Rowers enter in Canaregio river during the 42nd Venice Vogalonga on May 15, 2016 in Venice, Italy. 42 years ago a group of Venetians, both amateur and professional rowers, came up with an idea of non-competitive race in which any kind of rowing boat can take part. The first Vogalonga began with the message to protest against the growing use of powerboats in Venice and the swell damage they do to the historic city. (Photo by Awakening/Getty Images)

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 zombies, cowgirls, and witches were out in force Saturday night on Clematis Street as thousands of people came to Moonfest to celebrate Halloween. They came from Broward County, Boynton Beach, Wellington, Port St. Lucie, and as far away as Germany and Sweden. Photo: Joe Smith, 60, Boca Raton. (Photo by Thomas Cordy/The Palm Beach Post)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

A devotee participates in Holi celebrations at the Nandagram temple, on March 22, 2013. (Photo by Manish Swarup/Associated Press)

“Fly cap for a vine snake”. A fly lands on the head of a vine snake in the Choco of Colombia. (Photo and caption by Robin Moore/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

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