it is rare that i photograph man-made things when i'm traveling around looking for beautiful things in nature, but artistic construction like this will make it into the photo collection.

The iris is perhaps my favorite flower for abstract photography. They offer some really nice lines and curves with a wide-variety of colours.

a super closeup shot of a bee's wing. the longer hairs are on the side of the wing facing the camera, and since the wing is mostly transparent, you can also see the hairs on the opposite side which appear shorter as they fade off into the distance. each of these ultra-tiny hairs have a diameter about 1/8000 of an inch (1/4 the thickness of kitchen plastic wrap).

if you ever wondered what a photography studio does on a slow day... well, we photograph our toothbrush, and here it is. this is a close-up shot of the bristles on a toothbrush (Oral-B if you're curious) and each one has a diameter of 0.0075 inches (thickness of 1½ sheets of paper). we found it interesting that the plastic bristles start out very smooth on the handle end (seen at top) and then have a rougher texture on the brushing end (seen at bottom).

when a large mass of lava cools very slowly, it can create column-like fissures during it's cooling. then, over the years, water and ice push the columns apart and the outer pillars topple giving you a scene like this one. there's only a handful of places on earth where conditions were just right for these strange rock formations to form.

Yucca tree (Yucca brevifolia) in Mojave desert.

In front of the local Post Office someone took the time to prepare a rather large display of summer flowers and foliage. It is well cared for and quite impressive to the many passersby picking up their mail. Although a rather common flower, this gladiolus had exceptional form and I couldn't resist capturing on film. The bright pink row of buds in varying degrees of development against the surrounding dark green plant life created a very nice balance.

a fresh and perfect bloom of a yellow, white, and pink variegated rose