Looks like these two are watching each others' back preparing for a mission.

aerial view of clouds forming over Gulf of Mexico

this is a closeup shot of an Asiatic Lily. toward the base of each petal, are two short rows of fleshy-hairs running down the center (easily gone unnoticed). as the dark red petal nears the main flower stem, it makes a quick transition to white and then green. this shot captures the tiny fuzz (gummi worms in foreground) near the base of the petal (green brick-like cells in background) during that multi-colour transition. each 'worm' measures 0.0021 inches in diameter (a row of 475 would make an inch).

fresh young bamboo stalks growing in eastern Chinese forest

The sloping sides of Bryce Canyon have a very unique variegated effect as the many layers of coloured sandstone errode away. I couldn't pass up such an opportunity to capture a good texture shot and grabbed a 600mm lens to grab the distant details.

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco is a fantastic setting for many great images. I saw these two swans swimming about and set up on the nearby shoreline. As with most animals, you really must do a lot of waiting for the right moment (unless you are lucky enough to come across one that responds to verbal instruction). There were many fair shots, but each time something was not quite right, so I very patiently waited, slowly panning the camera to track their movement and making adjustments along the way. In as little as a half hour, there was finally a moment when they both stopped eating seaweed and faced each other just long enough for me to complete my work.

This is a close-up of Dichrolam Film - an exotic material that won awards for being one of the most innovative materials in the world. It's paper thin and made up of several hundred layers of super-thin plastics that diffract and filter light into different colours depending on the viewing angle.