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).

Once again, I was on my way back to my hotel after a beautiful day of shooting natures fine work. In my rearview mirror, I saw some very dramatic clouds and light working their way into a masterpiece. I pulled over, grabbed some gear and hiked off the roadside a bit to find a clearing other than the highway. It was a woodsy area and to my luck, I quickly come across a large pond. Not only did it offer me a great view of the sky, but it supplemented it with some lovely reflections. I waited for the sun to just barely hide behind the next set of passing clouds and then I got to work. A few streams of light burst out only to add to this gorgeous moment in time. Much like when we were kids and laid back to see things in the clouds, these two predominant clouds remind me of moose antlers. Virtually no one else saw my unique point of view, so I refrained from publicly titling this scene "Moose Ears".

a single blade of grass supporting 3 drops of rain

occasionally when an Eastern Redbud tree (which has pinkinsh-purple blooms instead of the more typical red blooms) gets rather old, clusters of blooms squeeze out from every part of each branch, limb, and trunk. it's a great find if you happen to find one during the right moment of spring (then it's just a matter of getting the camera equipment up in the tree).

almost passing for an aerial photo over some trees, ocean, and a smoldering volcano, this world was actually discovered on the belly of a small fly - more specifically a tiny Blue-green Long-legged fly (Condylostylus). the micro-hairs along the contours of it's abdomen now look like a forest of trees covering the hills of a tropical island. the way the light reflects of the fly's metallic-like surface, gave us the ocean and rainforest colour palette. and the volcano is actually a hair pore with the hair shaft going out of focus toward the camera, giving the appearance of rising column of smoke. the width of this shot covers 0.0126 inches which is the thickness of a playing card.

a couple of tiny frogs taking a nap on a tree branch

looking quite similar to an xmas tree with ornaments and tinsel, this is actually a photograph of a hostile invasion possibly taking place in your own backyard. if you see a plant with a white or light-gray powdery substance on the top-side of its leaves, it is probably an invasion of the 'White Powdery Mildew Fungi'. many different types of these spores spread with the wind, rain, birds, and even the feet of insects, and when the right type of spore lands on a suitable plant, it quickly takes hold by rooting into the plant. it then steals nutrition from the plant to grow an outbreak of thread-like structures over the surface (seen as white rice-like chains in this photo) which eventually block the plant's photosynthesis process and kills it. when the mildew fungus is sufficiently mature, it develops new sets of spores (inside the brown raisin-like containers) to travel in the wind and repeat the cycle. each of the brown spore-sacks measure about 0.0014 inches in diameter which is the thickness of kitchen aluminum foil.

edge of a corn crop in Indiana