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.

Earlier this year, Belgian film-maker and artist Vincent Bal stumbled upon an uncanny resemblance to an elephant in the shadow of his tea cup. This gave him the idea for Shadowology, a series of doodles that interact with the shadows of simple, everyday objects: a banknote, some ice cubes and a flower, for example, can turn into a church, a woman and a hippy. “I draw a few lines and I get my image. It’s really the shadows that inspire me”, Bal says. Here: “Stonedog”. (Photo by Vincent Bal/The Guardian)

The works of Hu Shaoming immediately catch the eye of the onlookers with their level on intricacy and uniqueness. To provide a glimpse into the intricate workings of vintage cameras he uses a very unique method. He made it seem as if the fine leather covering of the camera was opened by zipper, showing its innards. A similar technique was used on an ancient telephone, though there it looks more like an embellishment. The idea was so marvelously put into life that it seems as if those items can actually be zipped up, though of course that is not possible.

A photo taken from the International Space Station shows Hurricane Lane in the early morning hours near Hawaii, August 22, 2018. (Photo by Courtesy @astro_ricky/NASA/Handout via Reuters)

Joaldunaks return in a trailer to their town at the end of Carnival between of the Pyrenees villages of Ituren and Zubieta, northern Spain, Monday, February 1, 2016. In one of the most ancient carnivals in Europe, dating from before the Roman empire, companies of Joaldunak (cowbells) made up of residents of two towns, Ituren and Zubieta, parade the streets costumed in sandals, lace petticoats, sheepskins around the waist and shoulders, coloured neckerchiefs, conical caps with ribbons and a hyssop of horsehair in their right hands and cowbells hung across their lower back. (Photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP Photo)

Team GB synchronised swimmers Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe took on an underwater fashion shoot in June 2021 before they represent Britain in the artistic swimming competition at the Tokyo Olympics next month. (Photo by Bluebella/Cavendish Press)

The Tree Projects team spent 67 days documenting one eucalyptus regnans in the Styx valley of Tasmania. Using a combination of tree-climbing and elaborate arboreal rigging techniques, they produced an intimate portrait from an impossible perspective of one of the world’s largest individual flowering trees, which goes by several common names. These photos document the process that resulted in an extraordinary ultra high-definition photograph. Here: Haley nears the top of the tree. (Photo by Steven Pearce/The Tree Projects/The Guardian)

Actress Elke Sommer sunbathing on the beach of Cannes during the Cannes film festival, 1961. (Photo by Daniel Fallot/INA via Getty Images)