peeking up under the nodding flowers of imperial fritillaria stalks (lutea maxima)

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.

White Peacock butterfly in southern Florida.

Southern England

a lovely and unique treasure discovered while roaming the hawaiian rainforest

home grown soda bottles? well, not quite. laying across the bottom of the photo is the edge of a daisy's stem, and the 'bottle' is a single hair/fuzz (1/60 of an inch in height) protruding from that stem. daisy plants have bristly stems (in between soft and prickly) so the fuzz has a larger diameter making it more stiff, and as we recently discovered... it's also hollow and uniquely shaped. to add a little colour, we placed a small piece of yellow tractor-feed paper as a background, so that the out-of-focus hole created a nice glow on the horizon.

While hiking through the many woods in the valley, I came across a clearing packed full of ferns. Clearings between the groves of trees were common, but none were like this one. These ferns average five to six feet in height and were nothing short of spectacular. The sunlight filtered through the airy flora creating many layers of green as it progressed toward the shaded ground region.

i love bamboo. there is just something about its form and usefulness that appeals to me. it grows quite fast and is very strong yet flexible. while traveling through various bamboo forests in China, i've seen new bamboo sprouts that were at least 4-5 meters tall.