closeup texture shot of an Ultimate Pink type rose

female brown bear taking it easy (Aleutian Islands)

resident of Indiana wetlands

looking straight-down on top of a lovely pink hyacinth. The fragrance is quite strong and i can understand why the French like to use these Mediterranean flowers in their perfumes.

northern Kauai

home grown soda bottles? well, not quite. laying across the bottom of the photo is the edge of a daisy's stem, and the 'bottle' is a single hair/fuzz (1/60 of an inch in height) protruding from that stem. daisy plants have bristly stems (in between soft and prickly) so the fuzz has a larger diameter making it more stiff, and as we recently discovered... it's also hollow and uniquely shaped. to add a little colour, we placed a small piece of yellow tractor-feed paper as a background, so that the out-of-focus hole created a nice glow on the horizon.

the exotic blooms on this particular tropical vine last only a day. After just missing a couple of openings, a gardener friend and I was pulling shifts going to check on it's status twice a day. Finally, late one morning, the magnificent passiflora opened to display it's unparalleled details. Immediately, I load up an excessive amount of gear so that nothing would warrant a second trip and spent several hours more than adequately capturing the moment on film. As the day progressed and the sun started getting low, the entire wonder began to close only to fall off the next day; but on film it lives on.

I was spending some time in one of my favorite woods, and this time decided to strictly look upwards. For hours, I wandered about with a kink in my neck and tripping over the underbrush, until I came across this amazing view. I was in a pine woods and this one lone black cherry tree had made its stand. It certainly stood out amongst the group which I had never noticed by just looking horizontally. The surrounding pines appeared to be curious about the unique shape and colour of this tree and gave it just a little extra space all around. My neck was relieved to have found something of such interest; I setup my camera and laid on my back beneath the tripod and shot straight up.