from the beautiful and tropical Wailea, Maui

vast amounts of water flowing over Horseshoe Falls (Canadian side of Niagara Falls)

Banyan forest growing in swampland

a super closeup of an ant's head showing a portion of it's face along with half of it's lateral eye. visually, the entire head appeared a stealthy black, but the photography lighting caused the eye to glow a dark red which made for some interesting contrast. each of the micro-lenses on the compound eye, measure 0.00074 inches in diameter (1,350 of them would make inch). another interesting effect is how the translucent hairs acted like lenses and focused our lighting into little hotspots on the scaly surface.

aerial view of clouds forming over Gulf of Mexico

I was hiking to the Paria wilderness in Arizona and parked my car in southern Utah, as far as the nearest dirt road would take me. On my way to the Arizona border (located at the "V" on the far left), I passed by a grouping of vermillion striped mounds that reminded me of a dessert of some sort. Perhaps it was just the heat and my desire for something cold to eat.

Meet "Crusty" the sand crab on the coral-sand beaches of Guam. He was kind enough to not move while I setup my gear in very close proximity and capture this macro shot.