It’s that time of year again—the polarizing time when winter lovers welcome the snowfall and all the activities that come with it, and snowbirds dread every day until their flight.
But besides the intimate glance at a snowflake you’re sometimes offered by your windshield before it melts, you can’t expect to see its unique properties any closer unless you’ve got some hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on lenses.
So when you see these beautiful extreme close-ups of one of nature’s most stunning wonders below, you wouldn’t exactly picture a duct-taped contraption snapping the photos.
The resourceful amateur photographer, Alexey Kljatov, set up a camera rig that didn’t exactly look pretty, but took some pretty incredible photos.
Using flashlights and plastic bags for lighting, old camera parts, boards, a plastic bottle, glue and tape for the rig, Kljatov was able to capture the mesmerizing uniqueness of each snowflake.
The perfection in symmetry we see in the flakes is due to a combination of minor changes in humidity and temperature that water experiences as it freezes on the way down from the sky.
The six-sided shape that results is because of the crystalline structure of ice, also hexagonal.
But science shmience. When you look at these photos, the explanation behind them is moot. Just enjoy one of nature’s beautiful songs from the sky.
Source: Flickr
To read more about Alexey’s setup, shown below, check out his blog: chaoticmind75.blogspot.ru