This is a straight-down shot of a young corn lily plant (Veratrum californicum) common in moist meadows along the west coast. The accordion-shaped leaves look just like my camera bellows, but the plant is quite poisonous. In fact, if animals eat the foliage, their offspring can be born with cyclopia (one large eye in center of head).

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.

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco is a fantastic setting for many great images. I saw these two swans swimming about and set up on the nearby shoreline. As with most animals, you really must do a lot of waiting for the right moment (unless you are lucky enough to come across one that responds to verbal instruction). There were many fair shots, but each time something was not quite right, so I very patiently waited, slowly panning the camera to track their movement and making adjustments along the way. In as little as a half hour, there was finally a moment when they both stopped eating seaweed and faced each other just long enough for me to complete my work.

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.

certainly appearing to be a pile of gemstones, this is actually a extreme closeup shot of a flower anther. within the middle of a gladiolus flower, you'll find four long and narrow stems protruding from the center of each bloom. three of these have a tiny banana-shaped pod (anther) on the end, and the remaining one (stigma) has three tiny fingers on the end. if you zoom into the anther, it appears something like a long canoe-like boat heaping full of cargo. zooming in more (and from the side), you can get a clear view of the 'cargo' of cells stacked up in the anther/boat. this photo is a tiny portion of that cargo and each 'gem' is about half the area of a human hair. (check out our "Sea Monster" shot to see the neighboring stigma up close.)

It was late in the day and I had been shooting a garden until my surroundings became dim. On my way out, I passed by a patch of primrose flowers next to a large boulder. I was amazed at their vibrant glowing colour even though the surroundings were in dull evening light. Being reasonably certain that they were not battery-powered, my only rationalization was that these petals were made of the same fluorescent substance on firefly tails. I returned the next day to shoot them in bright sun, but the flowers appeared quite average. So, I waited until they were once again in the dim evening shade and captured their neon colours on film.

geyser at Yellowstone

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.