Columbines, in general, are a lovely flower coming in wide assortment of colour combinations. This giant columbine was growing all by itself and appeared very proud to be doing so well on it's own.

i'm keeping my distance and using my longest lens as this female hunter is sizing up lunch.

When one gets their camera close enough to a drip of water, the whole surrounding world can been seen within. This makes for a rather unique and very interesting imagery that is sure to start conversation. Seeming to be an eternity, I very carefully moved my camera gear about to capture the surrounding patch of daisies and early morning sky inside this secondary wide-angle lens without the slightest disturbance to the delicate drop of water. After a few micro-adjustments to the tripod, the sun glistened on the very edge of the drop and make a perfect highlight for the piece. I've never been one to use star filters or other special effect filters, so these streams of light are completely natural.

overlapping leaves on a young Sycamore Tree

a couple of tiny frogs taking a nap on a tree branch

although pesky, once you start to explore the common housefly, all sorts of amazing discoveries can be made. this is a super-closeup shot of the shiny metallic area on a blue bottle fly (blue housefly) capturing an area about the thickness of a playing card. the surface contains deep dimple-like cavities (similar to a golf ball) with an ultra tiny hair (about 1/8000 of an inch) in each one. the blue metallic colouring is mirror-like and reflects our lighting around like a highly polished automobile.

in June 1967 a special type of meteorite called a 'pallasite' was discovered in the Magadan district of eastern Russia (near Seymchan). it is one of only 61 known meteorites of this type and it contains olivine crystals mixed in with other metals and rocky materials. we noticed a tiny spot that really sparkled in the light, so we zoomed in and photographed it (seemed like the proper thing to do at the time). this photo is 0.03 inches wide which is about the thickness of a credit card and just big enough to capture this most interesting area.