Greg Dimijian (c) 1996

Leafcutter ants:

With her sharp mandibles, a leafcutter ant in a Costa Rican rain forest cuts out a segment of a leaf, which she will carry back to her underground nest as food for a fungus colony cultivated by the ants. Two individuals of a smaller caste wait to accompany her back. They will ride atop the leaves with their mandibles open, waiting to drive off parasitic flies which appear out of nowhere to lay eggs on the leaf-carriers. A Nikon F4 was used with Velvia film and a 105mm Micro-Nikkor lens at f22.

Greg Dimijian (c) 1996

Arenal volcano:

Erupting suddenly and ejecting incandescent rocks hundreds of feet in the air, Arenal Volcano lights up the night sky over a cloud forest of Costa Rica. Oceanic crust subducting beneath the Pacific coast of Costa Rica fuels the volcano, which erupts every few hours around the clock. At a vantage point a mile away on an adjacent slope, a Nikon F4 was used with Kodachrome 200 film and a 35-70mm f2.8 Nikkor lens used wide open at 65mm focal length. Manual focusing was achieved on a bright star before the eruption. The shutter was opened at the moment a bright orange glow appeared, signaling the onset of the eruption, and was left open for a 30-second exposure. The sound of the blast took 6 seconds to reach the camera’s location.

Greg Dimijian (c) 1996

Blue mists:

In the blue light of dusk, ghostly columns of water vapor rise above Black Sand Basin of Yellowstone National Park, where shifting reservoirs of hot magma lie a short distance below the surface. The heat has killed the trees and drives ground water upward as steam. An 8-second exposure was made with a Nikon F3, Kodachrome 200 film, and a 35-105mm Nikkor lens.