cluster of Dendrobium orchids in China rain-forest

This is a collection of some of the water drops flowing into the Yosemite Valley. It is difficult to take a bad photograph in this area, as the main valley area is surrounded with lush pines and giant cliff walls in all directions. The falls were abnormally robust this summer due to a previous heavy winter and wet spring.

this was captured at the International Rose Test Gardens in Oregon where they have thousands of well cared for roses.

a closeup shot of an Amanita Bisporigera mushroom... more specifically the thin fleshy fins on the underside of the mushroom's top. each of the fins measure 0.0048 inches in thickness (like a typical sheet of paper). i found it interesting that the seemingly simple brown fins were speckled with millions of tiny dots arranged into clusters that made up the brown and near-white patches seen here. we made an attempt to photograph these dot patterns extra closeup (resembling the dots on a dice), but our lighting kept cooking the thin and delicate mushroom fin before a quality photograph could be obtained. we'll probably try again using a refrigeration plate or ice to keep the tiny fin fresh.

when large brown bears come out out their winter slumber, they're hungry and are looking for the easiest food available. bears favor easy food that does not require a chase, battle, or conflict, and salmon meets those requirements quite well (also good news for me behind the camera). it is common to see these bears standing in a stream waiting for their meal to attempt to swim by. this one perched himself atop a small falls where the salmon have to jump to beat the down-rushing current.

it's a beautiful mid-spring day and i walked in many circles, ducking and bobbing my head for some time, trying to find the angle that best complimented this tree's glory. the clusters of large white flowers are quite bright against the surrounding forestry and such contrast made for a great shot.

since we did not get the chance to place one of our camera's onto NASA's deep space probe, we went with the next best thing... we photographed a piece of tile from Home Depot. yes, this is looking at only 0.4% of a 3/4-inch piece of glass tile that to the naked eye, looks clear dark brown (like coca-cola) with gold glitter streaking through. zooming in, revealed the gold specs to be sharply formed pyramids that reflected light very well. as the glitter streaked through the depths of the tile, it resembled an asteroid field with more colour and beauty than if we went with the NASA probe (mission accomplished).