High in the Urubamba Mountains, lies the recently famous ruins of MachuPicchu. The peak off to the right is WaynaPicchu. After a lengthy steep climb up damp and slippery rocks, it provides a nice overlook of the ancient city. Many photographers stand on the hill on the left side of this photo and capture a portion of the ruins; I chose to climb to a neighboring peak and shoot down over the entire area. The stepped plateaus going down the side were farmland and between each level are stone steps protruding out from the wall.

i'm no giraffe expert, but i think the left one wants a kiss.

I am often quite bored during long flights and look for anything to do within the confined cabin space. Sometimes the cloud levels are just right while the sun is lower for better light, and I take the time to set up a tripod and camera on the flight. Tight spots like this are fantastic for my Trekker tripod. It is so versatile and accommodating to the oddest of places I wish to place a camera. Getting a few curious looks from nearby passengers, I carefully scout for a nice grouping of clouds to occupy my time. I usually try to avoid any view of the plane or wing, but this time it was unavoidable in my row. As it turns out, I really liked how the wing establishes where the photo was taken and prefer it over many shots from other flights.

an assortment of brightly-coloured algae reflect in the steam rolling off a large hot spring.

one of many Lotus ponds throughout China.

Although this can commonly grow into a tree it is officially classified as a shrub (cotinus coggygria) from Eurasia, and a really cool shrub at that. This was my first encounter with one of these and I was delightfully amazed with its colours. The leaves were a grape-purple on the top side with a more common greenish underside. When the sunlight shown through the leaves, they lit up a brilliant red, adding another odd colour to this unparalleled plant. I made sure to capture this wonder of colour on a bright sunny day with an equal amount of leaves showing their upper and lower hues.

This cute little fella was raised on a large pond not too far from the studio. Never more than a few inches from Mom, the adorable youngster was swimming about, getting its share of seaweed from just below the surface. They both tend to stay away from the shore (probably for safety) and I haven't managed to coax them much closer. So this shot was captured through an 800mm lens to bring in the detail and expression of the young bird without disturbing the mom.

almost passing for a multitude of old dusty harpsichord strings, this is actually a closeup photo of a polished gemstone called 'Tiger Eye'. we zoomed in where the chatoyancy effect was the strongest to capture these fiber-like inclusions that make up the cat's eye appearance. the width of this photo is about 0.037 inches which is a tad thicker than a playing card.