Snowflake photo: Winter technologies (1024 x 768)

This is small snowflake, 1 mm in diameter or slightly bigger. Glass background with backlight, additional lens Helios 44M-5, December 2014, Moscow. 19 RAWs averaged.

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica).
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com.

Inverted variant:

Snowflake photo: Crystal of darkness (1024 x 768)

Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com.

December 26, 2014 was really wonderful day, which adds to my snowflake archive lots of fresh crystals (more than 8 gigabytes in total). I've processed two more snowflakes: High voltage and Gardener's dream, and lots of other pretty crystals waits for processing!

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here you'll find snowflake photo wallpapers in numerous resolutions and screen proportions, up to Ultra HD 4K.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

Snowflake photo: Crystal of chaos and order (2400 x 1800)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

Finally, i had 3 days of good snowflake shooting, and nice new crystals to process. This image, however, from January 2014, but next snowflakes will be fresh!

This is relatively large crystal, around 5 or 6 millimeters in diameter. if you look closely at it's center, you'll easily classify it: this is snowflake of split plate type. I encounter these crystals not too often, and usually they look quite like "normal" snowflakes at first glance, and we'll see difference only when inspect them closely. Here is another crystal of same type: Vega, and it also won't show it's true nature, if you don't magnify it:

This "chaotic" snowflake was captured on large plate of glass with LED back lighting, using Canon Powershot A650is with additional lens Helios 44M-5, reversely mounted in front of built-in camera optics. 11 identical RAWs was averaged to boost signal-noise ratio of this picture.

Here is next snowflake, that i've processed from wonderful evening snowfall of 16th january 2014 - Iron crown / Spark:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here you'll find snowflake photo wallpapers in numerous resolutions and screen proportions, up to Ultra HD 4K.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

This winter in Moscow starts not too good for snowflake photography: when it's cold, there is almost no snow; when we got snowfalls, it's too warm and snowflakes quickly melts. But one day was cold and snowy, and i was lucky to capture some big fernlike dendrite crystals like this one:

Snowflake photo: Cloud number nine (3586 x 2691)

Prints available at: Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com, Society6.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, Marketplace.500px.com.

Fernlike dendrites are really interesting snow crystals. If you ever seen the snow, then you probably seen them, too: this is common and very big snowflakes. Usually they are so big, that we can see all their details with naked eye, especially if we catch them on dark backdrop for better contrast. Many "traditional" snowflakes, which are painted by artists and modelled by 3D designers, remind fernlike dendrites or similar type, stellar dendrites.

We can describe fernlike dendrites as stellar dendrites, only with more complex and "chaotic" structure: usually they have more side branches and "icy leaves", and these details are not strictly symmetrical on different arms, and even on opposite sides of same arm. Maybe this asymmetry caused by really big size of fernlike dendrite: often they can be whole centimeter from tip to tip and even bigger! Because crystal is big, changes in air temperature and humidity on it's oppposite sides is not so perfectly synchronous, as on sides of smaller and simple snowflakes, and this causes asymmetrical growth of arms.

Usually these crystals have very small center, but long, large and massive arms, and these crystals are very fragile. Often we can see these snowflakes with broken arms, or even single arms, fallen from the sky: it seems that this is results of collisions in the air.

This time, i've tried slightly different shooting, and was satisfied by achieved results: i collected snowflakes on plastic bag, then transferred best looking specimens on surface of DVD-R disk, using small paintbrush. Moving snowflakes with brush is quite easy task; but then, i've used sharp wooden toothpick to raise crystal by it's edge and make it stand vertically, relying on other crystal. This trick was not easy, but, surprisingly, not impossible mission: within half of hour i've managed to get four crystals standing vertically, and they not fall, when i captured short photo series for averaging. This picture processed from the best of all four source sequences. It was made from averaged stack of 10 identical photos. Background behind snowflake is not sky: this is blue paper.

I've also processed other fernlike dendrite crystals - Winter is coming!, Asymmetriad, Silverware / Neon, and my favourites: Majestic crystal and Leaves of ice:

This snowflake also available as ultra HD wallpaper:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.

1024 x 768

This is another compilation of tiny ice crystals (around 0.2 - 0.4 mm in diameter), captured January 22, 2014. Used 3 sources (each containing 8 identical RAW shots for averaging). I picked best crystals (and some unfocused ones for background) and drag them in one compact group.

Source images (opened on Flickr in full resolution):

Previous ice dust picture:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here you'll find snowflake photo wallpapers in numerous resolutions and screen proportions, up to Ultra HD 4K.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

Snowflake photo: Rigel (1800 x 1350)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com, Society6.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

This is another stellar dendrite snowflake from January 2013. This snow crystal was difficult to work because it quickly melts at edges, while i captured series for averaging. Averaging photos with such serious differences leads to blurry zones (where melting occurs). So, i manually restored outer edges of snowflake using first photo from the series. 6 identical photos was averaged to boost signal-to-noise ratio of this image. Background: dark grey woolen fabric, natural light from cloudy sky, external optics Helios 44M-5, Moscow, Russia.

My processing workflow includes manual drawing precise mask at contour of snowflake (to being able process crystal and background separately), and i used this mask again for variant with blurred background:

Snowflake picture: Rigel, blur variant (1365 x 1365)

Licenses for commercial use available at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

This variant was used as square tile in collage Under the grey sky with three other snowflakes (Leaves of ice, Alioth and Vega):

Also, this snowflake available as Ultra HD wallpaper:

This snow crystal, and Starlight are the most beautiful stellar dendrites from all my catch of January:

I also combined both snow crystals into one picture:

Snowflake photo: When winters meets 2 (3400 x 2550)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com, Society6.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

Snowflake photo: Silver foil (1600 x 1200)

Prints available at: Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

This is another snowflake from wonderful snowfall of January 16, 2014. This medium size crystal, as well as many others from that day, have interesting frozen bubbles of rime on it's surface. Overall amount of these bubbles is low, but almost every bubble have something like "impact crater" around it (like ring waves in the pond from thrown stone).

This snowflake was captured on large sheet of glass with LED back lighting, using Canon Powershot A650is with additional lens Helios 44, reversely mounted in front of camera optics, for better magnification. 8 identical RAW photos, captured as quick series, was averaged for better SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of this image.

This snowflake also available as full HD wallpaper:

Here is another snowflake from same wonderful snowfall of 16th january, Cold metal:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

Snowflake photo: Winter is coming (2048 x 1536)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com, Society6.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, Marketplace.500px.com.

This is another fernlike dendrite snow crystal from previous winter. This snowflake was not too large for it's type, around 5 millimeters from tip to tip. The only challenge with this photo was painting complex mask, which separates snowflake from background (painting these masks is the part of my usual snowflake workflow: they used to process crystal and surrounding background with different methods, and these masks need to be very precise).

This snowflake was captured January 2014 in Moscow, on large sheet of glass with LED back light, using Canon Powershot A650is and additional lens Helios 44 (mounted in front of camera's built-in optics for way better magnification than standard macro mode). 8 identical RAW source photos was taken as quick series, and averaged for better signal/noise ratio of final image.

I think, this is most traditional-looking snowflake that i've processed so far (or, maybe, this is another snowflake - Asymmetriad):

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here you'll find snowflake photo wallpapers in numerous resolutions and screen proportions, up to Ultra HD 4K.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

2696 x 3594

I started this picture May 2013, but, when it was half-done, moved it to archive for long time. Recently decided to finish it, finally. About 80 source shots with different lighting was used.

I wrote small post about light painting technique: english / russian.

Alternate version:

3000 x 4000

5410 x 5410

Another collage from two previous collages:

Prints available at: Artist website, RedBubble.com.

Desktop wallpaper version in wallpapers section:

Snowflake photo: Alcor (1600 x 1200)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com, Society6.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

This is small snowflake: lesser than 2 millimeters from tip to tip. Despite small size and simple shape, this is beautiful and interesting crystal: it's inner part with curvy lines remind flower, but outer rim with six broad hexagons looks very different.

7 identical RAW photos, taken as fast series, was aligned and averaged to boost signal/noise ratio of final picture. Background: dark gray woolen fabric, diffused light of cloudy sky, Canon Powershot A650is with additional optics Helios 44M-5 (mounted reversely in front of built-in lens as additional magnifier). March 2013, Moscow, Russia.

Here you'll find another interesting specimen, which i've captured at same day - Vega, much bigger snow crystal with surprisingly simple shape and structure:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here you'll find snowflake photo wallpapers in numerous resolutions and screen proportions, up to Ultra HD 4K.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

3148 x 1771

Once again i used this fantastic set of free canvas textures.

Snowflake collage: Bright crystals 2012-2014 (11000 x 11000). License: CC BY-NC.

Prints available at: Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com.

This is very high resolution (121 Megapixels) square collage with 21 real snowflake macro photos, photographed at glass surface with LED back lighting. All snow crystals you see here was not re-scaled, so their difference in size is real.

You can see here wide range of snow crystal shapes and sizes: from small and simple hexagonal plates to exotic snowflakes with 12 arms, and very large and complex fernlike dendrite snowflake (around 7 millimeters from tip to tip), which you see in the center.

If you are curious about these snowflakes, you can see them in full size and different color variants: From scratch, Silver plume, Iron crown, Morning star, Asymmetriad, Relief, Beneath a steel sky, Massive gold, Cloud wheel, Silverware, Wheel of time, Snow flower, Oak leaves, Flying castle, High tech of nature, Ornate pattern, Twelve months, Less is more, Cryogenia, Cold metal and Chrome. Some of these crystals also available as Ultra HD wallpapers.

Here is four single snowflakes in square frames on pastel background, based on this collage:

Also, i've prepared similar collage, only with dark snowflake photos, taken on black woolen fabric in natural light:

Ultra HD 4k desktop wallpaper with these collages available on page wallpapers:

And here is two sililar collages, created in 2013 - bright crystals and dark crystals:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

Snowflake collage: Dark crystals 2012-2014 (10000 x 10000). License: CC BY-NC.

Prints available at: Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com.

This is very high resolution (10000 x 10000 pixels) collage with 18 real snowflake macro photos, captured at dark grey woolen fabric in natural light from cloudy sky. All snow crystals you see here keeps their original resolution and was not re-scaled, so their difference in size is real.

This collage presents wide range of snowflake sizes and shapes: from simple triangular and hexagonal plate crystals to large and complex stellar dendrites.

I used one of these really nice free canvas textures for background.

If you are curious about these snowflakes, you can see them in full size: Molten glass, Capped column, The beauty of imperfection, Alioth, Radiant green, Ice rainbow, Starlight, Jewel, Ice crown, The core, Vega, Alien's data disk, Almost triangle, Web, Hex appeal, Shine, Complicated thing and Slight asymmetry. Some of these snowflakes also available as Ultra HD wallpapers.

And here is similar collage, but with bright snowflake photos, captured on glass surface with LED back lighting:

Ultra HD 4k desktop wallpaper with these collages available on page wallpapers:

Also, here is two sililar collages, created in 2013 - bright crystals and dark crystals:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

HDR photo: Rapture (4000 x 3000)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

Revisited House of Music. I really like this building and it's environment. With new processing, it reminds me some place of underwater city Rapture from great game Bioshock.

Moscow, august 2014. HDR processing from 5 exposures (i used averaging of source exposures for better clarity and colors: 4 shots for brightest and 8 for each other exposure, 36 shots total).