A very excited neighbor boy brought this to me one day and wanted to know if I wanted to shoot it. I went inside and got a good macro lens and started to set up next to a nearby boulder. The young man coaxed the mantis from the carrying stick onto the boulder and I began getting ready. To my surprise, it made a very nice pose, turned its head to face me, and just sat there patiently while I took readings and captured this shot.

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.

southwestern Utah

sunset over the many islands in northwestern Washington

With camera gear strapped to my back, I was wandering about the countryside on my trusty bike when I came across a rather nice woods. This area was new to me and the moment was begging me to explore. It was a perfect section of woods, with a variety of trees and plant life. Just hilly enough for interest and just sunny enough to get good colour saturation on film. I discovered this one tree; a tree of all trees. Its upper branches were the size of most other mature trees. Truly enormous. The times this tree must have experienced and weathered through were unimaginable. I paced around it many times as I stared up into its array of beauty; searching for just the right point of view to preserve this tree for even greater period of time.

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).

foliage on the tropical island of Guam

I'm standing at the top of Mount Haleakala in Maui as the sun is rising above the clouds. Although I'm in the tropics, it is below freezing here at two miles up and I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked. My day started at 1:30am to initiate the drive up the mountain in time for this event, and wasn't about to leave due to cold air. I got a good location scouted out and quickly set up my gear with some jumping jacks in between to keep the blood flowing. The sun seemed to be extra slow this morning (it must have been cold, also) and in time, I got the shakes from loss of body temperature. Fortunately, the event finally started in all its beauty and the cable release removed all my thermal tremors from the image.