A man watches Israeli Air Force planes fly over the Mediterranean Sea from a beach at Tel Aviv during an aerial show as part of celebrations for Israel's Independence Day to mark the 66th anniversary of the creation of the state, May 6, 2014. (Photo by Nir Elias/Reuters)

Jeison Rodriguez (L), 19, the living person with the largest feet in the world, poses for a picture with his older brother Wilmer, 24, outside their house in Maracay, Venezuela, October 14, 2015. Rodriguez, holds the Guinness World Record for the largest feet, with 40.1 cm (1 ft 3.79 in) on the right foot and 39.6 cm (1 ft 3.59 in) on the left foot. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

It’s time to start watching for Comet PANSTARRS, one of two comets to get excited about in 2013. Photo: This image provided by NASA shoaws the comet PANSTARRS as seen from Mount Dale, Western Australia on March 5, 2013. According to NASA on March 10, it will make its closest approach to the sun about 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) away. As it continues its nightly trek across the sky, the comet may get lost in the sun's glare but should return and be visible to the naked eye by March 12. (Photo by AP Photo/NASA)

A participant holds balloons before the Annual March against Homophobia and Transphobia in Havana, May 14, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

This picture taken on June 1, 2019 shows Alex Gao trying to balance a book on his head during an etiquette and manners class in central Shanghai. Against a soundtrack of classical music, children learn social skills, dining manners and deportment in the class, which costs $390 for four hours of practical instruction per student. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) looks through a window of a research bathyscaphe while submerging into the waters of the Black Sea as he takes part in an expedition near Sevastopol, Crimea, August 18, 2015. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)

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.

Beach Policeman, Potomac River, 1922. (Photo by National Photo Company/Colorized by Patty Allison)