Super-cell thunderstorms, whirling tornados and lightning bolts illuminating the sky – these photos capture the terrifying brilliance of American storms. (Photo by Brandon Goforth/Solent News & Photo Agency)

“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)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

“Kids of Sapa”. Four little beautiful Hmong girls from Lao Chai Village, near Sapa, Vietnam. (Photo and caption by Felipe Hanower/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

An election poster calling for the legalisation of marijuana and featuring internet meme “Grumpy Cat” hangs outside the Pirate Party's campaign headquarters in Berlin on August 16, 2013. The Pirates, who to everyone's surprise were elected into Berlin's regional parliament in September 2011, are trying to capitalise on their recent electoral gains in upcoming parliamentary elections, running on a platform of transparency in government. Germany goes to the polls on September 22, 2013. Placard reads: “Hurry up, my dope is everything”. (Photo by John Macdougall/AFP Photo)

Satarupa Chakraborty, 5, dressed as a Kumari, yawns while she is worshipped by a Hindu priest during the religious festival of Durga Puja in Agartala October 2, 2014. (Photo by Jayanta Dey/Reuters)

A model poses during the annual World Bodypainting Festival in Poertschach, Austria, July 3, 2015. The event takes place from July 3 to 5 at lake Woerthersee in Austria's southern Carinthia province. (Photo by Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)

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.