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.

The sloping sides of Bryce Canyon have a very unique variegated effect as the many layers of coloured sandstone errode away. I couldn't pass up such an opportunity to capture a good texture shot and grabbed a 600mm lens to grab the distant details.

Although appearing to be an autumn scene, this was actually captured mid-spring. At the edge of a woods quite near the studio, was a young red maple and hovering over it like a parent, was a much larger green maple and then some oak trees. With a short tripod, I laid on the ground and shot up toward these colourful leaves. The back-lighting from the sun created very strong colour and interesting patterns of light and shadow.

a closeup shot of an Amanita Bisporigera mushroom... more specifically the thin fleshy fins on the underside of the mushroom's top. each of the fins measure 0.0048 inches in thickness (like a typical sheet of paper). i found it interesting that the seemingly simple brown fins were speckled with millions of tiny dots arranged into clusters that made up the brown and near-white patches seen here. we made an attempt to photograph these dot patterns extra closeup (resembling the dots on a dice), but our lighting kept cooking the thin and delicate mushroom fin before a quality photograph could be obtained. we'll probably try again using a refrigeration plate or ice to keep the tiny fin fresh.

yes, this is real. i was hiking through a desert (with a load of camera gear of course) and saw this little cactus growing on top of a rock. it was too unique and charming to pass by without taking this photo opportunity.

Standing next to the high-elevation 'Science City' atop Mount Haleakala, all i can see are these clouds and the small patch of land i'm standing on.

closely resembling a (well used) golf ball, this is actually a super closeup shot of a Zinnia's flower petal. the petals have a cool pattern of dimples each measuring about 1/1000th of an inch across. we then focused a ultra-tiny spotlight so that the shaft of light was the size of a human hair (smaller than a laser beam). as the highly focused light bled out through the relatively flat petal (see inset), it created the shading effect of a round ball.

eastern Utah just after sunset