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

Banyan tree silhouettes and reflections in Horseshoe Lake (southern Illinois) during sunset

vanda orchids growing in Hawaii rain-forest

dense bamboo forest in southern Maui

Typically when I shoot autumn images, I am biased toward early autumn so that there is more green with only some yellows and orange. I so much appreciate the lush greens that nature produces and it looks so full of life. Although fall colours are quite beautiful, I still prefer to maintain a fair amount of green in the photo as this makes the other autumn colours more pronounced and appreciable.

A very excited neighbor boy brought this to me one day and wanted to know if I wanted to shoot it. I went inside and got a good macro lens and started to set up next to a nearby boulder. The young man coaxed the mantis from the carrying stick onto the boulder and I began getting ready. To my surprise, it made a very nice pose, turned its head to face me, and just sat there patiently while I took readings and captured this shot.

also known as 'the Grand Canyon of the Pacific', this is certainly a wonderful place to hike and shoot some film (as long as you don't mind the annual 240+ inches of rainfall).