A bar girl shows off her sexual desires along the Walking Street where bars and sеx scenes are a commonplace July 31, 2016 in Pattaya, Thailand. Thailand's first female minister of tourism would like the sеx trade that is a huge business in the country to be banned. Tourists flock to Thailand for many sights including beautiful beaches but also for sеx tourism. Cities like Bangkok and Pattaya are well known as hubs of the Southeast Asian sеx trade, despite the fact that prostitution has been illegal in Thailand since 1960. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A Palestinian fisherman casts his net as he stands along the beach in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on June 14, 2019. The Israeli government said late on June 12 that the fishing zone off the coast of Gaza had been closed, in retaliation for the launch of incendiary balloons from the Palestinian enclave. The move came after COGAT said on Tuesday it had reduced the extent of the fishing zone to six nautical miles offshore from 10 nautical miles, having downscaled it from 15 nautical miles a week ago. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP Photo)

This 1931 Stutz DV-32 convertible sedan has 66,000 miles on its odometer and its original leather luggage awaits its first complete restoration Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at L'Cars Automotive Specialties in Cameron, Wis. The company which does high-end restoration and customization work classic cars that have won awards at the world-renowned Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Winning cars include a 57c Bugatti, Rolls Royce PIII V12, V12 Aero coupe, T44 Bugatti, T55 Bugatti, T38A Bugatti, Mercedes Benz 290 Roadster, Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, T57 Bugatti, 1929 Duesenberg J, Mercedes Benz 540K cabriolet, Talbot Teardrop and a 1931 V16 Cadillac convertible. (Photo by Mark Hoffman)

In this photo taken Monday, April 29, 2013, carver Jackson Mbatha, 40, poses next to a an unfinished large toy giraffe he is making from pieces of discarded flip-flops, in front of a painted workshop wall at the Ocean Sole flip-flop recycling company in Nairobi, Kenya. The company is cleaning the East African country's beaches of used, washed-up flip-flops and the dirty pieces of rubber that were once cruising the Indian Ocean's currents are now being turned into colorful handmade giraffes, elephants and other toy animals. (Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

Bar girls use their mobile phones outside a bar along the Walking Street where bars and sеx scenes are a commonplace July 31, 2016 in Pattaya, Thailand. Thailand's first female minister of tourism would like the sеx trade that is a huge business in the country to be banned. Tourists flock to Thailand for many sights including beautiful beaches but also for sеx tourism. Cities like Bangkok and Pattaya are well known as hubs of the Southeast Asian sеx trade, despite the fact that prostitution has been illegal in Thailand since 1960. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

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.

Broadway Tower is a folly located on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second highest point of the Cotswolds after Cleeve Hill. Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 55 feet (17 metres) high. The “Saxon” tower was designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1799. The tower was built on a “beacon” hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered if a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester – approximately 22 miles (35 km) away – and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. The beacon could be seen clearly.

“David Doubilet (born 28 November 1946) is a well known underwater photographer known primarily for his work published in National Geographic Magazine. He was born in New York and started taking photos underwater at the young age of 12. He started with a Brownie Hawkeye in a rubber anesthesiologist's bag to keep the water out of the camera. During his summer holidays, he spent his time along the New Jersey coast. He later worked as a diver and photographer for the Sandy Hook Marine Laboratories in New Jersey. He also spent much time in the Caribbean. While a dive instructor in the Bahamas he found his motivation to capture the beauty of the sea and everything in it”. – Wikipedia. (Photo by David Doubilet/National Geographic)