This large Bird-of-Paradise bloom gave me quite a challenge. I was hiking in a tropical rain-forest when i saw glimpses of this beautiful bloom. The only trouble was the best side to photograph was rather hidden by thick foliage with no practical way to get closer. I found a peek-hole through the network of leaves, but it was very high, so i stretched the tripod to it's full height and then more so by greatly decreasing it's base to obtain just enough height to peek through this hole in the foliage. Then added a very large zoom lens on top of this very unstable camera setup. After waiting some time for everything to settle down from micro-movements (including not breathing on or near the camera), i was able to capture this exotic shot.

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.

With camera gear strapped to my back, I was wandering about the countryside on my trusty bike when I came across a rather nice woods. This area was new to me and the moment was begging me to explore. It was a perfect section of woods, with a variety of trees and plant life. Just hilly enough for interest and just sunny enough to get good colour saturation on film. I discovered this one tree; a tree of all trees. Its upper branches were the size of most other mature trees. Truly enormous. The times this tree must have experienced and weathered through were unimaginable. I paced around it many times as I stared up into its array of beauty; searching for just the right point of view to preserve this tree for even greater period of time.

a fresh and perfect bloom of a yellow, white, and pink variegated rose

this would be the coolest set of marbles around, if only they were really marbles. this is actually an extreme closeup photo of a compound eye on the Green-blue Long-legged fly (Condylostylus). these flies are much smaller than the common/plump housefly, and they serve good purpose around your garden's plants. this one had red eyes that originally appeared like rows of warm-red jelly beans with an overall dull luster. but once we pinpointed the studio's lighting into the eye's lenses, it rapidly increased the aging/deterioration process and the inner-eye elements started displaying this beautiful crackled pattern. each of these lenses measure 0.0008 inches in diameter (about the thickness of kitchen plastic wrap), and a closer look will show that some have a tiny three-hair 'grappling-hook' coming out between them.

a cluster of purple vanda orchids in Brazil