One of my favorite locations is southeastern Utah. The area has many bizarre rock formations in all shapes and sizes. It is just after dawn and I'm on my way to a planned trailhead as I pass by these absolutely massive walls of rock. A few extra moments for this side trip won't hurt my plans, so I stop and wait for the sun to raise just a little higher. I grab a non-distorting wide angle lens and finish setting up in front of this wonder. The low warm light made this giant formation glow with contrasting shadowed edges, enhancing its texture and rich colour, making for a beautiful image to preserve on film.

this is an extreme closeup shot of a silicon wafer that has shattered. like most hard & brittle materials, the broken fragments have scalloped patterns along the shattered edges (like broken glass). this particular fragment's pattern resembled a lightning storm and shows off an area of 0.0055 x 0.0037 inches (averaging out to the thickness of a sheet of paper).

Maui rain-forest

This scene has summer fun and relaxation written all over it. It was late June and a perfect day for the season. Climbing down the steep embankment, I was actually standing in several inches of water to get a good view of the mountain peak framed nicely between the nearby trees. I waited for the ripples I created to disappear, and adjusted the tripod rather low to capture the stones just below the water's surface. The way the water refracted from being able to see the bottom of the lake, which slowly faded into the reflections from the far shore, was a nice bonus.

these large birds appear to have infinite patience as they stand motionless for hours waiting for their meal to swim by.

Alder Lake in Washington state

This beautiful moment was captured on Navajo's land in Arizona. With permission from the Native Americans, I visited their sacred and amazing canyons. It's a bit windy topside so there is a constant shower of sand pouring in. In just a few minutes, piles of this ultra-fine sand begin to build up on our shoulders, pockets, and equipment making the day-long adventure quite memorable. When the sun is at its highest, it illuminates some of these sand showers to appear as magnificent beams of light.

Meet "Crusty" the sand crab on the coral-sand beaches of Guam. He was kind enough to not move while I setup my gear in very close proximity and capture this macro shot.