Nature's Collection

Photographs from around the world and free computer backgrounds. Select a photo collection from above.

unique outcropping of weathered sandstone in Colorado

Outcropping

One of my favorite locations is southeastern Utah. The area has many bizarre rock formations in all shapes and sizes. It is just after dawn and I'm on my way to a planned trailhead as I pass by these absolutely massive walls of rock. A few extra moments for this side trip won't hurt my plans, so I stop and wait for the sun to raise just a little higher. I grab a non-distorting wide angle lens and finish setting up in front of this wonder. The low warm light made this giant formation glow with contrasting shadowed edges, enhancing its texture and rich colour, making for a beautiful image to preserve on film.

Nature's Wall

certainly appearing to be a pile of gemstones, this is actually a extreme closeup shot of a flower anther. within the middle of a gladiolus flower, you'll find four long and narrow stems protruding from the center of each bloom. three of these have a tiny banana-shaped pod (anther) on the end, and the remaining one (stigma) has three tiny fingers on the end. if you zoom into the anther, it appears something like a long canoe-like boat heaping full of cargo. zooming in more (and from the side), you can get a clear view of the 'cargo' of cells stacked up in the anther/boat. this photo is a tiny portion of that cargo and each 'gem' is about half the area of a human hair. (check out our "Sea Monster" shot to see the neighboring stigma up close.)

Balanced Gems

this is a super closeup photo of a fallen lily petal. to the naked eye, the petal appears a pale plum colour, but when zoomed in with a bunch of light, we discovered that this flower was mostly white and only had colour running through these vein-like areas. the once juicy cells are drying out which is causing the puckers & wrinkles in the clear/white areas. the coloured 'veins' measure about 0.00042 inches in diameter (a tad thinner than kitchen plastic wrap).

Peppermint Swirl

foliage on the tropical island of HaiNan

Tropical Essence 3

small forest on the side of a volcano in Maui

Trees

foliage on the tropical island of Guam

Tropical Essence 2

Ka'anapali Beach is famous for it's gentle shallow waters and beautiful ocean sunsets like this one.

Ka'anapali Sunset 1

People worldwide enjoy our 'Moments with Nature' photo sharing project
We receive countless thank-you notes from people around the world who look forward to every tuesday morning when they receive our "Moments with Nature" and relax just a bit. Folks that are in stressful jobs or difficult life situations, who now take a moment to breath and enjoy a serene picture from planet earth (and look forward to next weeks moment). It has become very popular over the years, and you could be included… It's completely free, super easy to cancel, and never any other use of your email address