Snowflakes Like You've Never Seen (PHOTOS)

By Camille Mann Published: Dec 9, 2013, 4:35 PM EST weather.com

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Macro Snowflakes

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Snowflake macro shot taken in January 2009 shot on green plastic carpet. (Alexey Kljatov)

Each snowflake that falls has an intricate design that is all its own. Russian photographer Alexey Kljatov decided to take a close-up look at the ice crystals for his stunning photo series.
“When I bought my first digital camera, I was impressed by it’s ability to capture the tiny world, almost unseen by the naked eye,” explained Kljatov to weather.com.
After seeing shots of snowflakes on the internet Kljatov was “amazed by their cold crystal beauty” and was inspired to take some shots of his own.
When Kljatov was taking his first macro snowflake shots, he says he made a lot of mistakes. “I shot in poor light on a handheld. My first snowflake shots were terrible, but I was happy to see the snowflakes’ shapes and patterns,” he said.
A year ago, Kljatov decided to get more serious about his macro shots and began using an external lens as a magnifier in front of his camera. He also set up two different backgrounds for shooting – a glass sheet with backlight and a dark background made up of woolen fabric using only natural light.
The Moscow-based photographer collects the snowflakes as they fall on either a large sheet of glass or a woolen fabric and shoots them immediately.
“My method has an advantage in speed. I can rapidly switch from crystal to crystal,” he explained. “The disadvantage is that my background is usually covered by unwanted crystal and ice debris, which I need to clean out at the post processing stage.”
After shooting the snowflakes, Kljatov digitally combines his series of identical shots to make one clear picture. The result is beautiful sharp photos of each unique snowflake.