I Thought I Knew What I Was Seeing. Then I Got Closer And My Jaw Dropped To The Floor.

Sometimes Mother Nature does the coolest things while we”re not looking. Every year snow comes and goes. Most of us even complain about the cold weather. But, what we don”t realize, is that on a microscopic level something absolutely mind-blowing is happening every time it snows (and we whine about the roads). This is awesome.

Not only are these photos beautiful, but it”s amazing how photographer Alexey Kljatov creates them: I capture snowflakes at open balcony of my house, mostly on glass surface, lighted by LED flashlight from opposite side of glass, and sometimes in natural light, using dark woolen fabrics as background.

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On a floor of a balcony I put the turned stool (legs up), on them – a glass plate. Previously, i shoot using Canon A650″s standard macro mode. For this, from a small plastic bottle I cut central cylindrical part in the form of a tube (height 5.5 cm). This height I picked up so that the lens of the camera, pushed in a tube, will be at distance 1 centimeter from the bottom (this is minimum focusing distance of Canon A650 in macro mode). I just put this cylinder with the camera”s lens within it over the chosen snowflake, the lens looks vertically down. For steady shots, i shoot in small series with starting delay 1-2 seconds after focusing, taking away my hands off the camera. With free hand i illuminate snowflake with flashlight from under the glass. The flashlight shines through two layers of white plastic bag for more uniform lighting. This is enough for shooting even at night with minimum ISO and short exposure time. So next time, when there is snow in the forecast, don”t complain. Or at least appreciate the snow for a good 10 minutes before you do. Source