Small transportation boats, known as bumboats, leave trails of light as they travel across Marina Bay past the skyline of Singapore in this photo taken in 2004. Singapore holds a Jubilee weekend from 7 to 10 August to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence. Fifty years ago, hundreds of small boats lined the Singapore river in the city centre. Today, most small boats are gone, except a handful of neon-lit tourist ferries. Maritime trade is still the backbone of the city-state but after decades of rapid growth Singapore, which at less than half the size of London is among the world’s most densely populated nations, is also a popular tourist destination and a thriving global financial hub. (Photo by Edgar Su/Reuters)

In northwest Russia, in a small village called Alekhovshchina, Nadia Sablin's aunts spend the warmer months together in the family home and live as the family has always lived, chopping wood to heat the house and making their own clothes. Sablin's book of photographs, “Aunties: The Seven Summers of Alevtina and Ludmila”, is published by Duke University Press. Here: “Two-Handed Saw, 2014”. (Photo by Nadia Sablin)

A debutante from a local academy looks at her mobile phone as she waits to take part in the Vienna Ball at the Kempinski Hotel, March 19, 2016, in Beijing. The ball, which is an event organized by the luxury Kempinski Hotel chain and the City of Vienna, brings together both Chinese and foreign members of the capital's elite class. Despite a slowing economy, private wealth has soared in China after decades of rapid growth. A record number of high net worth individuals and families has fuelled a market for luxury goods, services, and events catering to China's burgeoning elite class. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

An older model Ford Mustang sits on cinder blocks with missing wheels near an abandoned apartment building in Detroit, Michigan January 7, 2015. Detroit, also known as the Motor City, is the historic hub of automobile manufacturing in the United States. A federal judge in December 2013 formally declared the city bankrupt but it won court approval to exit bankruptcy last November. Once the proud symbol of U.S. industrial strength, Detroit fell on hard times after decades of population loss, rampant debt and financial mismanagement left it struggling to provide basic services to residents. (Photo by Joshua Lott/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.

In this undated photo provided by LittleFriendsPhoto.com via Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Kai, a 17-year-old male California sea lion at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Valejo, Calif. peers into the lens of photographer Seth Casteel, known for his “Underwater Dogs” photo series. ... (Photo by Seth Casteel/AP Photo/LittleFriendsPhoto.com via Six Flags Discovery Kingdom)