It looked like this giant balanced rock was a hand pointing straight up into the sky. I could have wrote something real philosophical, especially since this was located in the "Garden of the Gods" but as I was standing near its base, I just hoped it wasn't time for this magnificent piece to settle.

I'm hiking across the inside of a volcano crater and loving the diverse assortment of mineral colours. every few minutes it seems like i enter a new alien world with unique soil and rock types. The distant base of the clouds are over a mile in elevation, and they peak around 8,500 feet – the camera is just under 10,000 feet to capture this beautiful and unique land.

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.

a picture-perfect passage between cliffs in southern Illinois

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.

a super closeup of an ant's head showing a portion of it's face along with half of it's lateral eye. visually, the entire head appeared a stealthy black, but the photography lighting caused the eye to glow a dark red which made for some interesting contrast. each of the micro-lenses on the compound eye, measure 0.00074 inches in diameter (1,350 of them would make inch). another interesting effect is how the translucent hairs acted like lenses and focused our lighting into little hotspots on the scaly surface.

top of MarcaHuasi in Perú

from the beautiful and tropical Wailea, Maui