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.

passing for an assortment of freshly mined diamonds, these rough 'gems' are actually grains of refined sugar. they are spilled upon a deep-blue CD case which gave us a nice colour backdrop and texture. the crystalline grains of sugar average around 1/60 of an inch.

some picture-perfect stalks of Imperial Fritillaria (lutea maxima) just waiting for someone like me to come by and capture them on film.

southern Maui along the road to Hana

an up-shot of the large clusters of dates on this Phoenix dactylifera in Kauai

Looks like these two are watching each others' back preparing for a mission.

Temple of the Sun in Cuzco