This scene has summer fun and relaxation written all over it. It was late June and a perfect day for the season. Climbing down the steep embankment, I was actually standing in several inches of water to get a good view of the mountain peak framed nicely between the nearby trees. I waited for the ripples I created to disappear, and adjusted the tripod rather low to capture the stones just below the water's surface. The way the water refracted from being able to see the bottom of the lake, which slowly faded into the reflections from the far shore, was a nice bonus.

a straight-down shot at a wonderful assortment of summer flowers growing together

layers and layers of spire-shaped mountains in ZhangJiaJie

growing in Poipu, Kauai

Trying not to sound like an advertisement for tripods, but I really love my Benbo Trekker. It is an extremely well engineered piece of British equipment and is the only tripod that has accommodated every place I have desired to place a camera. For this photo, I'm set up between the seats on a 737 so I could capture this through the window.

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.

Arizona plantlife