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Snowflake Gallery
Since there aren't many good storm photo ops in winter around here, I often resort to shooting snowflakes as a form of entertainment. Since I began shooting snowflakes a few years ago, I've really started to improve my setup as well as shooting techniques. Nowadays, my setup mainly involves a Canon 60D and a reversed 18-55mm kit lens using the reverse macro technique (see the tutorial section). I've recently began experimenting with backlighting my snowflakes. This method allows me to really bring out the details in snowflakes, including their complex facets and internal bubbles. I've created this page to catalog my findings and share the beauty of ALL the snowflakes I shoot, not just the ones I find the time to touch up in post. So while many of the flakes on this page can be considered "rough" processings, any and all of them can be cleaned up and be presented as fine art prints.
**I will be updating this page regularly so be sure to check back at least weekly this winter to see the newest additions to the collection!**
Want to learn more about snowflakes?
Check out Ken Libbrecht's snowflake classifications here! No two snowflakes are the same, and they come in many shapes and sizes including:
Simple Prisms
Stellar Plates
Sectored Plates
Stellar Dendrites
Fernlike Stellar Dendrites
Hollow COlumns
Needles
Capped Columns
Double Plates
Split Plates and Stars
Triangular Crystals
12-Sided Snowflakes
Bullet Rosettes
Radiating Dendrites
Rimed Crystals
Irregular Crystals
Artificial Snow
So, how do you know what type of snow crystal will be falling? Snowflakes grow in a very complex manner, but given basic parameters of the temperature and relative moisture content of the location of their formation, we can make an educated guess as to what they'll look like. The chart below illustrates how certain combinations of temperature/moisture promote complex growth, while other combinations limit snowflakes to simpler forms like simple prisms and needles.