Such a strong blue is a rare colour to be found in butterflies which makes the Blue Morpho an excellent find. This vibrant blue is very visible to their predators and so they rarely rest with their wings open to display these alluring colours.

I'm hiking across the inside of a volcano crater and loving the diverse assortment of mineral colours. every few minutes it seems like i enter a new alien world with unique soil and rock types. The distant base of the clouds are over a mile in elevation, and they peak around 8,500 feet – the camera is just under 10,000 feet to capture this beautiful and unique land.

closely resembling a (well used) golf ball, this is actually a super closeup shot of a Zinnia's flower petal. the petals have a cool pattern of dimples each measuring about 1/1000th of an inch across. we then focused a ultra-tiny spotlight so that the shaft of light was the size of a human hair (smaller than a laser beam). as the highly focused light bled out through the relatively flat petal (see inset), it created the shading effect of a round ball.

Sunlight reflecting from the pond's surface, was shining up through a lily pad leaf that had grown to a few inches above the water. I loved the way it illuminated the structure of the leaf and it reminded me of modern fractal art (complex patterns generated by mathematical algorithms).

another spectacular view of Waimea canyon. The lush vegetation and diverse soil colours make for some very nice canyon photos.

commonly misunderstood as an albino, this White Indian Peacock appears just as lovely as it's multi-coloured friends.

JiuZhaiGou, China

When I first saw these celosia flowers in China, I couldn't resist taking the time to find one with just the right form and available light to capture a couple shots.