Snowflakes

Snowflake time! This will conclude my winter storm series so I can get back to San Francisco photos that ditched over a month ago. :)

I decided to include several images that aren't necessarily the greatest photography, because I wanted to give some good variety of the different shapes I encountered. I'm also going to include a little behind-the-scenes info in my captions. Thanks for reading/looking!




This was from day 1 of snowflake photography when it was still too warm for them to stick. Here's one melting as I photographed it.

I tried several different surfaces to collect and photograph flakes. This was a throw pillow, and I was not very impressed with the backdrop it provided, but it was so easy to collect flakes and position it for photos. You can tell a lot about the state of the snow by the flake. The one on the right is more slushy and was taken at a different time than the one on the left.

I used a couple of glass surfaces in hopes of getting a nice view through the flakes, but it didn't work exactly as I imagined. The flake on the left was one I took in a suspended Pyrex dish. I changed out the items under it to try different colors. The right flake is, I believe, on the bottom of a Coca Cola glass I own. It's tinted blue and I thought it would add a nice color, but it was too small to collect many flakes and I quickly ditched it.

I love that flake on the left because it's so different from most that I photographed.

You can see the flake on the left has an X flake laying across it.

Something is cutely sad about the underdeveloped flakes that end up just being 6-sided disks. Also, it's fascinating...you'd think flakes would be round instead of having such definite sides. Apparently it has to do with hydrogen bonding or something (I just looked it up and have already forgotten most of it).

Conjoined twins.

For funzies, one of the numbers on the Pyrex pan.

Here's another look at the flake in the previous photo to give a little scale. That's the end of a toothpick. I used toothpicks not only to move/clear flakes, but to help me find them with the camera.

Oh and I forgot to mention that this background is a knitted shawl/blanket I have. I actually really liked the wiry texture it gave and it was probably the most convenient for collecting flakes and having them stand and show different angles.

I love that top left one with a baby flake stacked on top.

The left surface is a beaded gel heat/cold pack that I had originally been using to warm my toes (I had strapped it over my shoes--they were SO COLD).

It's harder to see the details, but I really liked the white background for a nice snow/cold look.

This looks kind of like a lopsided Christmas ornament.