I was camping out on one of the lower peaks (about 8500 feet) in the Andes Mountains. It was a wet and somewhat tropical area and had a light rain most of the night. As daylight started making itself known, the remaining rain clouds started dissipating and swirling about the neighboring peaks. Once again, I grabbed my camera gear and prepared for a moody shot. The sunlight was peaking out here and there, clouds blowing by and changing each second, I just had to wait for everything to come into balance and squeeze the shutter's release cable. The dark neighboring mountain peak intertwined with scattering clouds created a mysterious and suspenseful image, expressing the drama in the air this morning.

a Cinnamon Fern in bloom

This beautiful sunset brought a wonderful end to a long day. I was returning from a day long shoot at a local club. Everything that could have gone wrong that day, did, and then some. It was blistering hot and I was well sun burnt. That evening, on the way back to the Studio, I decided to stop by the beach to relieve the day's tension. I often take my camera out for a walk and this was as good time as any. Barefoot in the sand, I stroll up the shore trying to forget my day. I came across a rather nice sand castle that some kids built. Stooping down trying to see what kind of silhouette shot I could get with the sun setting behind it, I squeezed off a few shots for fun. I had noticed that at certain angles, the water reflected the blues and purples in the sky and the sand castle suddenly became much less interesting. The colours were so rich I immediately took some light readings and captured the waves while the colour was at its prime.

northern Kauai

almost looking like the famous british breakfast omelet, this is actually an extreme closeup shot of a flower petal. more specifically, an area of 0.06 x 0.04 inches (about the thickness of a DVD) of a gladiolus bloom. i focused on the area of the petal where it transitioned from an overall pale-yellow down to it's dark-red throat. here, i discovered a layer of egg-yolk-like cells separated by clear gel-like cells which allowed me to see down to a lower layer of pale-yellow flesh riddled with tiny purple spots (averaging 1/1500 of an inch each). all-in-all, a most interesting find for the day that makes a beautiful piece of abstract art.

I planned my passage through southern Arizona when the giant saguaros would be in bloom. I always enjoy shooting flowers, but these blooms posed a new problem for me - they were all twenty to thirty feet above ground. As I hiked around exposing film on all sorts of life, I not only came across a good steep hill, but it had a large healthy cactus growing right next to it. Thanking mother nature for making this possible, I set up on the side of the hill and maxed out my largest zoom lens to capture these blooms.

This is the main center area of MachuPicchu. The "D" shaped structure near center is the Temple of the Sun. For some reason it was worthy of a complex curved wall, unlike all other surrounding structures.