Wilderness Images

I have received numerous emails asking about the setup I use to photograph snowflakes.  I have decided the best way to answer these requests is with a post showing the setup I use. The basic setup is based on a system initially designed by Professor Ken Libberecht a great snowflake photographer from California of all places.

The setup is basically a homemade microscope with a camera mount at one end. I use three different microscope objectives depending on the size of the crystals a 2X, 4X, and a 10X. The 10X is used only rarely for the crazy small crystals. This whole rig is mounted to a heavy post with a stage to hold the microscope slides on which I capture the snow crystals. This heavy post is necessary not only to stabilize the whole setup, but more importantly, so that I can ensure that the stage holding the snow crystal and the lens are absolutely parallel to each other. This is very important because, at the magnifications involved with this type of photography, the depth of field (the zone of sharpness in a photograph) is very narrow, about the thickness of a piece of paper. Therefore, if things are not lined up just right, all of the arms of the crystal will not be sharp.

Snow Crystal Setup

While technically speaking, everything about this type of photography is a huge challenge, I have found the lighting to be one of the toughest hurdles.  Because I am trying to photograph an exceedingly tiny, virtually clear sliver of ice, the lighting is critical. It must not only give the image some depth but also highlight the different facets of the individual crystals. In addition, the lighting cannot give off any heat or it would instantly melt my chosen subject, an obvious problem.  After many failed ideas, I came across a lighting system that uses fiber optic light pipes to focus an intense beam of light.  These lights transmit very little heat and have the added benefit of being flexible as well.

Snow Crystal Setup 2

I use two of these fiber optic lights (four arms).  One set shines up from below through a diffuser and then through two colored filters. These colored filters become the background of the final image as well as putting some colored highlights in the final image. The second set of light pipes shine down from above and have colored filters as well as tissue paper diffusers on each of the light heads. These two lights are individually fine tuned to highlight each snow crystal’s particular facets and help give the image some added depth.

One of the things I love about what I do is that I never know where things will lead. During the course of this project I built a microscope, learned about optics, light diffraction, and fiber optics, not to mention learning more than any normal person should know about snow crystals and how and why they form.  All of this happened because one day I woke up and decided I wanted to make a pretty picture of a snowflake.

Actually this post should be called snow crystal images because the images here are of single snow crystals. Most of the crystals shown here are between 0.04 and 0.08 inches. That means they would easily fit in this O. Snowflakes, at least the puffy balls of snow that fall from the sky are generally a conglomeration of many snow crystals that have collided and stuck together on their way down from the clouds. Contrary to popular belief, snow crystals are not frozen drops of water, that is what we call sleet. Sleet looks exactly like what a frozen drop of water should look like, a small ball of ice.  Snow crystals are formed when water vapor up in the clouds condenses, usually on a microscopic particle of dust one water molecule at a time. The six-sided symmetry we see is due to the way each individual molecule of water vapor (water molecules are six-sided) attaches itself to the growing crystal.

While there are many different types of snow crystals I think the most beautiful to photograph are plates (both sectored and stellar) and stellar dendrites. If you look in the center of many snowflakes you will see it began as a hexagonal plate. Then as it grew one molecule at a time, the six corners of these plates stick out from the main crystal more and begin to gather more water vapor. Once this happens, dendritic arms start to grow which, of course, stick out more and gather more water vapor, and you get the amazing shapes and forms seen in the images below. As these crystals travel through the clouds they go through areas in the clouds with different temperatures and humidity levels these changes in temperature and humidity also affect the way the crystals grow. Because no two flakes follow the same path through a cloud, no two flakes grow exactly the same. This is why no two snowflakes are exactly the same.

Snow Crystals

I have just returned from a great trip to Costa Rica (one of my new favorite places) I shot nearly 7,000 images it will take me some time to get through them. I will try to get some up in my next post.

The University of Michigan Health Care System has a very unique art program called Gifts of Art in which they bring in the work of different artists to display in the common areas throughout the hospital.  This art program is designed to not only reduce the stress and anxiety often associated with health care facilities, but also to aid and enhance the healing process.

I am very proud to have some of my work included in this program. I will have about fifty pieces hanging in the Taubman South Gallery through the middle of April.

If you are in the area please stop by and take a look. For more information or to contribute to this unique and worthwhile program please visit the Gifts of Art site at http://www.med.umich.edu/goa/