The First U.S. Spacewalk – Gemini 4 Ed White made the United States' first spacewalk on June 3, 1965 during the Gemini 4 mission. The extra-vehicular activity (EVA) started at 19:45 UT (3:45 p.m. EDT) on the third orbit when White opened his hatch and used the hand-held manuevering oxygen-jet gun to push himself out of the capsule. (Photo by NASA)

Riot police scuffle with pro-democracy students after hundreds of protesters stormed into a restricted area at the government headquarters, after a rally ahead of the October 1 “Occupy Central” civil disobedience movement in Hong Kong September 27, 2014. Hong Kong riot police used pepper spray on Saturday to disperse dozens of students who had stormed government headquarters, but an equal number held their ground in protests against Beijing's tightening grip on the city. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

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

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.

People throw turnips at the Jarramplas as he makes his way through the streets beating his drum during the Jarramplas Festival in Piornal, Spain, Tuesday, January 20, 2015. Jarramplas is a character that wears a costume made from colorful strips of fabric, and a devil-like mask and beats a drum through the streets of Piornal while residents throw turnips as a punishment for stealing cattle. The exact origin of the festival are not known, various theories exist from the mythological punishment of Caco by Hercules, to a cattle thief ridiculed and expelled by his neighbors. The Jarramplas Festival takes place every year from the 19th till the 20th of January on Saint Sebastian Day. (Photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP Photo)

The Enemy, 1944. With the outbreak of world war two, photojournalism was enlisted in defence of Mother Russia. In this photo by Anatoli Egorov, who was wounded in action, corporal Stepan Vasiljevich Ovcharenko shoots at enemy troops with a machine gun. (Photo by Anatoli Egorov/Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography)

In this Friday, February 27, 2015 photo, an Israeli high-school senior preparing to join the Israeli military later this year participates in a privately run training camp for military combat fitness near Yakum, central Israel. With a mandatory three-year military service looming after graduation, teenage boys, and increasingly girls too, are gearing up for the draft, getting into shape and trying to improve their chances of acceptance into elite combat units. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

Yanna Xian, 24, and her boyfriend Mitch Brown, 27, were swimming while on a boat tour off Honolulu, Hawaii last year, when a curious two-week-old humpback approached them. (Photo by South West News Service)