well, not actually a mountain, nor made of anything hard like crystal – this is actually a very closeup shot at the edge from where a flower petal was torn. the tear left little shards of protruding flesh that when brightly lit, the whole thing glowed like an ice sculpture. this particular shard measures 0.046 inches tall (less than the thickness of a DVD) and you can see the elongated cells of white and purple that made up the flower petal.

a Cinnamon Fern in bloom

large hawk-like bird in the Philippines

When I first saw these celosia flowers in China, I couldn't resist taking the time to find one with just the right form and available light to capture a couple shots.

Columbines, in general, are a lovely flower coming in wide assortment of colour combinations. This giant columbine was growing all by itself and appeared very proud to be doing so well on it's own.

top of MarcaHuasi in Perú

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.

looks like these two males are chatting about their upcoming fish lunch (Aleutian Islands)