This photo taken on February 10, 2025 shows a captured green iguana being held by hunters after it was brought down by a slingshot in Pingtung. Taiwan's iguana population has exploded since the spikey-backed giant lizards were introduced from Central and South America more than 20 years ago as exotic pets. Many escaped or were dumped by their owners and have bred rapidly in the warm climate of southern Taiwan, invading neighbourhoods and ravaging farmers' crops. (Photo by I-Hwa Cheng/AFP Photo)

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.

A large Mantle or Desk Clock featuring a fossil ammonite at its center, carved from the South American wood Keolbra with radiating Walnut spines. The clock hangs on a round, Plexiglass back supported by a wood base (Bubinga). The clockworks is a quartz, high-torque movement that runs on a single AA battery.

Revellers chase a bull into the sea during the “Bous a la Mar” festival on July 14, 2011 in Denia, Spain. The Spanish “Bous a la Mar” or “Bulls to the Sea” festival is held in honour of the Santisima Sangre and commemorate a monk named Pedro Esteve, who, as the legend has it, saved the coastal town of Denia from a plague in 1633. The bulls chased into the sea are later brought back to land by small boats. (Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

These powerful images capture the spear-wielding tribes of Papua new Guinea who believe they are possessed with the spirit of the crocodile. They show how the Kangunaman clansmen scar their backs to resemble reptile scales while the Huli Wigmen wear elaborate headdresses to signal they are ready for battle. (Photo by Trevor Cole/Media Drum World)

Pedestrians and workers pass an upside down car art installation in a car park on the South Bank in London, February 19, 2015. British artist Alex Chinneck's illusory piece, entitled “Pick yourself up and pull yourself together”, and on display in the working car park for a week, sees a Vauxhall car suspended upside down, appearing to be gripping onto a peeled back length of tarmac. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

Vivian Odhiambo, 24, frys samosas in the trading centre of Kogelo, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi, July 14, 2015. Odhiambo said, “Obama is our hero and we wait to welcome him back home again. We in Kogelo have witnessed general growth and we are proud of being associated with the Obamas”, she added. As U.S. President Barack Obama visits Kenya, a personal connection to his father's birthplace of Kogelo dominates a trip that Kenyans view as a native son returning home. Residents from a herdsman to a housewife share their views on what Obama has achieved and what they would like to see next. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

A nurse helps an injured bomb victim sitting at the back of a pickup truck at the Asokoro General Hospital in Abuja, April 14, 2014. A morning rush-hour bomb killed at least 35 people at a Nigerian bus station near the capital on Monday, raising concerns about the spread of an Islamist insurgency after the first such attack on Abuja for two years. Suspicion fell on Boko Haram, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Islamist group mainly active in the northeast. Five hours after the blast, officials had given no death toll. Reuters journalists counted at least 35 bodies. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)