huge canopy over Japanese garden creating a perfect balance of shade and sun for comfort.

Below ground caverns in Arizona wilderness, carved out by centuries of flash flood waters from rain many miles away.

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.

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.

just as you are wondering how we captured such a fantastic shot of a distant mountain at the same time as a network of caverns below it, the truth behind this photo is even more fantastic. this is really a closeup shot of a rose thorn broken off it's stem. the lower 2/3 of the photo is the inside part of the thorn where it used to be attached. the 'landscape' at top is the outer surface of the thorn that happened to have a bump shaped like a mountain (measuring 0.014 inches wide which is about the thickness of a playing card). to hold it steady during photography, we have the sharp point stuck into a piece of blue plastic which created our sky and blue reflections on the distant 'mountains'. the underground 'diamonds' are white crystal-looking cells that reflected our lighting like little mirrors.

macro shot of the texture and patterns of a fallen fig leaf

apologizing in advance for those with allergies... here's a whole cluster of pollen spores. each one measures about 0.006 inches across, so this entire grouping is equivalent to the thickness of a DVD. the photographed colour was enhanced from pale tones.

I'll try not to sound like an advertisement for tripods, but I really love my Benbo Trekker. It's an extremely well engineered piece of British equipment and is the first and only tripod that can accommodate every place that I've desired to place a camera. For this photo, I'm actually set up between the seats on a 737 so I could get a steady shot out the window.