Models walks the runway at the Stephan Pelger Show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin Spring/Summer 2012 at the Brandenburg Gate on July 9, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMG)

Two horses fight during a Xinhe Festival in Peixiu Village of Antai Township in Rongshui Miao Autonomous County on July 11, 2016 in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China. Xinhe Festival is one of the most popular traditional festivals in Rongshui with various entertainment activities. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Nepalese Hindu women pray to worship Lord Shiva during the first day of the Sarwan Brata festival, the month of fasting, at the premises of Pashupati Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, 18 July 2016. Thousands of married and single Nepalese Hindu women will gather in temples for each Monday of the Sawan month (spanning from 16 July to 16 August) to pray for a long and prosperous life of their husbands or for a chance to find a good one. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA)

A Nepalese Hindu boy in festival attire walks in a procession during “Gai Jatra”, or Cow Festival in Kathmandu, Nepal, Friday, August 19, 2016. Members of Nepal's Newar Community celebrate the festival in memory of their family members who died the preceding year, believing that the cow will guide them in their journey to heaven. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

“Leopard Hunting a Stork”. “One-shot capture. I watched the leopard stalking the stork, I only had time to focus at 400mm, no time to change to high speed, I watched the stork, and as soon as it flapped its wings, I shot one shot”. (Photo by Paul Rifkin/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

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.

Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Runner-up. “The heavens opened and the streets around Shibuya, Tokyo, were suddenly drenched in even more colour and movement. I was taking photos (my friend was holding the umbrella) when I noticed this woman at the crossing. I’m pleased with the futuristic feel of the image”. (Photo by Katherine Bridgestock/The Guardian)