foliage on the tropical island of HaiNan

closeup texture shot of a purple Iris

an up-shot of the large clusters of dates on this Phoenix dactylifera in Kauai

an assortment of brightly-coloured algae reflect in the steam rolling off a large hot spring.

occasionally when an Eastern Redbud tree (which has pinkinsh-purple blooms instead of the more typical red blooms) gets rather old, clusters of blooms squeeze out from every part of each branch, limb, and trunk. it's a great find if you happen to find one during the right moment of spring (then it's just a matter of getting the camera equipment up in the tree).

this is a piece of abstract art that was created on another planet - yes, really! on the occasion that a planet blows up (usually from a massive collision), the various substrates fly off into space and sometimes find their way to earth as a meteorite. typically these are either rocky (from the planet's mantle and crust) or iron-nickel (from the core), but on very rare occasions, earth receives a piece from the in-between boundary layer where crystals have formed. this is a closeup photo of a pallasite meteorite, looking deep into the olivine crystals formed on another world. we zoomed in to view about 1/20 of an inch (about the thickness of a DVD), and used very bright and finely focused lights that illuminated every bubble and imperfection to refract an assortment of extra colours... after all, this is from another planet, so we have to make it look as other-worldly as possible.

some picture-perfect stalks of Imperial Fritillaria (lutea maxima) just waiting for someone like me to come by and capture them on film.

about a week ago, my finger got pinched and created a tiny blood blister. now it's coming off and i decided to photograph the remains using a very tiny lens. this photo captures an an area about .057 inches wide (about the thickness of a DVD) and is of the outer regions of the blister where the dark dried blood meets the surrounding tough dried skin (whitish areas).