I’ve mentioned in some of my posts that I love scuba diving, but I haven’t shared all that much of my underwater photos or videos (although you should check out my seal video). Truth be told, underwater photography is truly hard and my results are a little hit and miss. I’m not even sure I actually like doing underwater photos, although I love it when I get good results. I plan to write more about my scuba photos in the future, but today let’s take a took at these banded shrimp (stenopus hispidus) living inside a sponge on Belize’s magnificent Turneffe Atoll.

I’ve already posted twice about my sunset visit to Mountain Valley Farm in Waitsfield, Vermont and how much I loved this incredible location. The first post was about finding a great scene in amazing light, while the second post went into detail about choosing the best photo of the barn cupola at sunset. Here now is my third (and final) photo from that evening – a close in view of the barn and two of its occupants. This photo was a combination of luck and finding the right composition, but it took a little time to get a good result.

My wife’s family has a long history of visiting Disney World, and I’ve now been more times than I can count. Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a special treat for zoo lovers for both the number of amazing animals and the quality of their enclosures. The gorillas occupy a vast hilly area with lots of room to move and separate areas for the male bachelors and the females. One of those enclosures opens up to a windowed area where it’s possible to see them up close, sometimes really close.

I originally took and posted this photo in 2009 before I started geotagging my photos, so I’m not completely certain where we were when I captured this. However, I know we were somewhere on Iceland’s extraordinary Snaefellsnes Peninsula on the west coast. Iceland is such an incredible place to visit, and at this time of year we were able to experience these incredibly long and spectacular golden hour sunsets that lit up the world and made everything look fantastic.

During the same “zoo day” where I took the photo of the painted lorikeet, I also had an opportunity to try a magnificent Nikon 600 f/4 lens at the primate exhibit. The good people at Mike’s Camera had stationed several high-end telephoto lenses around the park for different camera mounts, and photographers could simply attach their camera bodies to the lens of their choice and start shooting. After waiting a short time in line, I was able to get some time with this extraordinary lens (which Mike’s Camera has available for purchase for a cool $10k).