Delicate Arch, one of the most photographed natural arches in the country, and is even the state icon appearing on nearly everything throughout Utah. It is quite massive and resides on the edge of a steep canyon wall that quickly slopes more and more, making the hiker uncertain just how far beyond this landmark they can travel before footing will give way.

My friend and master gardener was showing me the sites and we came across her favorite of all trees, the chionanthus virginicus, or fringe tree. In late spring it blooms with drooping clusters of white flowers. I now understand her passion for the tree as is had a very soft friendly appearance with a lovely scent from it's quantity of blooms.

this is an extreme closeup shot of a silicon wafer that has shattered. like most hard & brittle materials, the broken fragments have scalloped patterns along the shattered edges (like broken glass). this particular fragment's pattern resembled a lightning storm and shows off an area of 0.0055 x 0.0037 inches (averaging out to the thickness of a sheet of paper).

I particularly liked the lines in this image; the way trees and shrubbery were growing up the sides matched the angle of the peaks. The mountain walls were exceptionally steep (nearly vertical) which made it easier to capture the grassland foreground and keep the mountain peaks crisp and close. The sun was still early and somewhat low which pronounced the roughness and magnitude of this shear wall of rock.

okay, so this is really myrtle spurge (euphorbia myrsinites) and the first time i saw it, it truly appeared alien to me. It had such an amazing combination of unique shapes and unusual method of branching, that i was certain this was from another world.

Arizona wilderness

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco is a fantastic setting for many great images. I saw these two swans swimming about and set up on the nearby shoreline. As with most animals, you really must do a lot of waiting for the right moment (unless you are lucky enough to come across one that responds to verbal instruction). There were many fair shots, but each time something was not quite right, so I very patiently waited, slowly panning the camera to track their movement and making adjustments along the way. In as little as a half hour, there was finally a moment when they both stopped eating seaweed and faced each other just long enough for me to complete my work.

I am a personal fan of lots of foliage. I maintain several quite large house plants but they just don't compare to standing amongst a rain-forest. This was captured along the way to Hanna, a remote southern town on Maui.