Snowflake-a-Day #31
Tiny plate-like snowflakes always impress me. Their lack of complexity doesn’t diminish their beauty; I think it only enhances the appreciation of the geometry and the fractal patterns we see. View large!
There is a small bit of “debris” on the crystal in the upper left. Usually I try to clear away obstructions with a small paintbrush to isolate a single snowflake, but in windy conditions it can be hard to get it completely isolated. Finding the snowflake in the viewfinder is also a difficult task, and if I decide to clear away debris a second time, I might not be able to find the snowflake in my frame again before it melts, sublimates, blows away etc. Timing is everything!
Because snowflakes are often hard to find on the black mitten where I photograph them, I sometimes use larger clumps of snow as a “landmark” of sorts. If I take a small clump of snow with the paintbrush and position it nearby the snowflake I want to photograph, my challenge becomes a little easier. I look for the large clump, and then I know where to move the camera to try and locate the snowflake I’m after. This can save me time, and I need to work as quickly as possible.
All of my snowflakes images are lit with a ring flash, usually with a 7:1 ratio of power on one side or the other. Ring flashes allow you to control each half of the ring independently, and I try to get exactly the right amount of light hitting the surface of the crystal from the right angle. This angle is very important; If you choose any “convenient” angle, you are likely to get just the edges of the crystal illuminated. If you carefully rotate the flash and the camera such that the light from the flash bounces off the surface of the crystal and into the camera, you can get all of the surface detail you see in my images. It makes the snowflakes sparkle, and sometimes also reveals colour in the snowflakes.
I shoot all of these images entirely handheld. You need to rotate the camera around the subject being the center of rotation, and you need to work as quickly as possible. For these reasons, no tripod has ever been used in any of my snowflake images. It makes the editing process more challenging, but it also allows for more snowflakes to be photographed when the conditions are perfect.
To learn every one of my secrets to snowflake photography, the entire photographic workflow is explained in comprehensive detail is my book Sky Crystals: skycrystals.ca/book/ - the good snow is about to start falling, so get out and photograph it! :)
To see what happens when you spend 2500 hours across five years working exclusively on snowflakes, the result is “The Snowflake” print: skycrystals.ca/poster/ - all crystals are accurately measured and placed in relative size to one another!
Wishing everyone a great New Year's Eve and a wonderful year to come!
Snowflake-a-Day #31
Tiny plate-like snowflakes always impress me. Their lack of complexity doesn’t diminish their beauty; I think it only enhances the appreciation of the geometry and the fractal patterns we see. View large!
There is a small bit of “debris” on the crystal in the upper left. Usually I try to clear away obstructions with a small paintbrush to isolate a single snowflake, but in windy conditions it can be hard to get it completely isolated. Finding the snowflake in the viewfinder is also a difficult task, and if I decide to clear away debris a second time, I might not be able to find the snowflake in my frame again before it melts, sublimates, blows away etc. Timing is everything!
Because snowflakes are often hard to find on the black mitten where I photograph them, I sometimes use larger clumps of snow as a “landmark” of sorts. If I take a small clump of snow with the paintbrush and position it nearby the snowflake I want to photograph, my challenge becomes a little easier. I look for the large clump, and then I know where to move the camera to try and locate the snowflake I’m after. This can save me time, and I need to work as quickly as possible.
All of my snowflakes images are lit with a ring flash, usually with a 7:1 ratio of power on one side or the other. Ring flashes allow you to control each half of the ring independently, and I try to get exactly the right amount of light hitting the surface of the crystal from the right angle. This angle is very important; If you choose any “convenient” angle, you are likely to get just the edges of the crystal illuminated. If you carefully rotate the flash and the camera such that the light from the flash bounces off the surface of the crystal and into the camera, you can get all of the surface detail you see in my images. It makes the snowflakes sparkle, and sometimes also reveals colour in the snowflakes.
I shoot all of these images entirely handheld. You need to rotate the camera around the subject being the center of rotation, and you need to work as quickly as possible. For these reasons, no tripod has ever been used in any of my snowflake images. It makes the editing process more challenging, but it also allows for more snowflakes to be photographed when the conditions are perfect.
To learn every one of my secrets to snowflake photography, the entire photographic workflow is explained in comprehensive detail is my book Sky Crystals: skycrystals.ca/book/ - the good snow is about to start falling, so get out and photograph it! :)
To see what happens when you spend 2500 hours across five years working exclusively on snowflakes, the result is “The Snowflake” print: skycrystals.ca/poster/ - all crystals are accurately measured and placed in relative size to one another!
Wishing everyone a great New Year's Eve and a wonderful year to come!