Snowflakes
Snowflakes from a recent snowfall:
Wilson Bentley (1865-1931) is the pioneer of snowflake photography. More recently Kenneth Libbrecht and Nathan Myhrvold have taken snowflake photography to new technical heights. Bentley, Libbrecht, and Myhrvold all take a similar approach of isolating a single snowflake on a slide and using a camera with a microscope optics. Liebbrecht also grows snowflakes for photography in addition to photographing naturally occurring snowflakes.
Over a number of years, I’ve done snowflake photography using a high magnification lens, but I’ve used leaves and other plant materials as a setting instead of slides. I’ll set out a leaf to catch some snowflakes, and then set it on a table under an overhang and search for an interesting subject. I like the look of these settings better, but my technique has a lot of drawbacks. I work outside while the snow is falling and a breeze can blow away the snowflake, the leaf, or both. A controlled environment with a microscope stage is much better, but I like taking my chances.
Besides isolated crystals, it’s also interesting to see the the complex structures that occur: interpenetrating crystals at different angles or in a single plane, as in these two images. Visit Libbrecht’s site, snowcrystals.com, for illustrations of the many forms snowflakes can take and the conditions for forming them.
Nature Diary 
What cold little geometric gems you’ve recorded.
They are pretty and complex. If you haven’t read about snowflakes, it’s pretty interesting. Libbrecht is a physicist, there’s a lot of science (chemistry, crystallography, physics) in play in snowflake study. The different states of the water molecule is what makes for the variety of crystal forms.
This is just fascinating, and so beautiful and delicate. I appreciate your choice to photograph them ‘en plein air’, as it were.❄️Thanks for this bit of history and for the link, too, Tom!
En plein air – that’s it. 🙂 In part it’s the look and approach I prefer, but also I don’t want to invest in the time and equipment for the images that Libbrecht and Myhrvold have taken.
I’ve never seen snowflake close-ups on a leaf background before, that’s great
It’s fun to try. The surprising part is how the snowflakes can change from one moment to the next: one moment melting mush, and another tiny crystals.
I prefer your approach to snowflake images, to see a snowflake in its “natural surroundings.” 🙂
The simple backgrounds in classic snowflake images show off the purity of the designs, but I like a “real” setting. I’ve tried other materials, but leaves are the easiest.
I love the challenge of trying to actually catch one, or even a small grouping, and then trying to actually capture it before it can be blown away or melt. It’s a good excuse to play in the snow.
When it’s snowing, I look at the snowflakes that accumulate on my sleeve to see what’s falling.and then set up if there are pretty snowflakes. It is fun.
I just was thinking about how I used to catch snowflakes on my mittens and sleeves. These are beautiful. I appreciate the more clinical approach — the isolation, the slides, and such — but dare I say the approach seems a little cold? I like your way better.
I was especially taken with the flake on the right in the first photo. It looks remarkably like this flower I found in the east Texas woods. That flower happens to be white, too, which adds to the resemblance. I had it ID’d at one point, but I can’t find that right now. I never imagined a snowflake would bring it to mind!
Lovely flower image, the flower looks familiar, but I can’t quite place it. Maybe I’ll get another opportunity for a snowflake image this season. Thanks for the kind words!
Found it! Stylisma pickeringii var. pickeringii, or Pickering’s dawnflower. The photo’s from the Sandylands Sanctuary near Kountze — it’s a Nature Conservancy site.
Cool. It’s mainly a southern and Midwestern plant, but there are records of it in NJ. Kountze – what an unusual name for a town.
I have of Wilson, but not the others, thank you!
I certainly enjoy viewing the more technical photographs of others with the dark backgrounds, but I also love the extra context yours provide. With yours it feels like I’m out there in the woods looking very closely at the snow falling on a leaf. I suppose it feels a little more participatory, as if I’m right there. With the others it’s a little less personal. Both are fascinating but in very different ways.
You’ve hit on my thinking about these. The slide approach is contextless and too simple, though the captures of the snowflakes are beautiful.
The microscopic snowflake images are amazing and beautiful
Thanks!
Truly wonderful photos!
Thank you so much, Richard!