I'm climbing down inside a volcano crater and am amazed with the variety of rock/soil colours that are so neatly piled about.

the seed cones of a Douglas Fir tree

an assortment of brightly-coloured algae reflect in the steam rolling off a large hot spring.

foliage on the tropical island of Guam

My friend and master gardener was showing me the sites and we came across her favorite of all trees, the chionanthus virginicus, or fringe tree. In late spring it blooms with drooping clusters of white flowers. I now understand her passion for the tree as is had a very soft friendly appearance with a lovely scent from it's quantity of blooms.

the American side of Niagara Falls

Many northern states like Montana have an abundance of colourful stones delivered by glaciers long ago. These happen to be at the edge of a lake under a few inches of water. The entire beach area and bottom of the lake (as far as I could see) was covered in this manner and the stones just under the water provided great rich colour with minimal wave distortion. To be able to shoot straight down and not have any perspective in the stone pattern, I stood in the water and waited for the ripples to disappear before capturing this neat texture image.

Southern Arizona wilderness