northern Kauai

looks like these two males are chatting about their upcoming fish lunch (Aleutian Islands)

this is a shot of the massive amounts of water going over Niagara Falls (Canadian side).

Foxglove stalk full of bell-shaped blooms

It is slow and tiresome hiking through miles of these steep rows of sandstone walls. it's a very beautiful location, speckled with small trees and interesting formations, but relentless with it's heat and giant maze-like features. most of my time is used climbing up & down (and winding to & fro) than actual forward progress (if forward is even a possible direction).

appearing as an aerial shot over an industrial area, this is actually an extreme closeup photo of a computer chip. more specifically a 64-bit Pentium dual core processor, containing 167-million transistors. the various colours come from the studio lights reflecting off the ultra-fine details in the semiconductor material causing a diffraction-grating type effect. this entire shot captures an area of 0.0000205 square inches (tad larger than the diameter of a human hair). to capture the whole CPU at this magnification, would take nearly 8,400 photos.

well, not actually a mountain, nor made of anything hard like crystal – this is actually a very closeup shot at the edge from where a flower petal was torn. the tear left little shards of protruding flesh that when brightly lit, the whole thing glowed like an ice sculpture. this particular shard measures 0.046 inches tall (less than the thickness of a DVD) and you can see the elongated cells of white and purple that made up the flower petal.

you'd probably believe me if i said this was a tentacle from some deep-sea creature, but it is actually a closeup shot of a common flower stigma (the tiny little stem sticking out of the center and captures pollen from the stamen). the stigma of a red gladiolus is only 0.025 inches in diameter (thickness of 2 playing cards) and this photo captures the very tip that protrudes farthest outside the bloom. (check out our "Balanced Gems" shot to see the neighboring anther part of the same flower).