JiuZhaiGou Valley, China

Below ground caverns in Arizona wilderness, carved out by centuries of flash flood waters from rain many miles away.

just as you are wondering how we captured such a fantastic shot of a distant mountain at the same time as a network of caverns below it, the truth behind this photo is even more fantastic. this is really a closeup shot of a rose thorn broken off it's stem. the lower 2/3 of the photo is the inside part of the thorn where it used to be attached. the 'landscape' at top is the outer surface of the thorn that happened to have a bump shaped like a mountain (measuring 0.014 inches wide which is about the thickness of a playing card). to hold it steady during photography, we have the sharp point stuck into a piece of blue plastic which created our sky and blue reflections on the distant 'mountains'. the underground 'diamonds' are white crystal-looking cells that reflected our lighting like little mirrors.

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.

late spring in the Aleutian Islands