From ten thousand feet above the Earth, a snowflake begins its fall. Its journey starts when ice forms around a nucleus of dust and is blown by the winds through clouds where the crystals blossom into tiny ice stars. Because it weighs next to nothing, a snow crystal may take hours to fall--finally landing where Caltech physicist Kenneth Libbrecht can use microphotography to record the tiny, intricate, frozen artistry of the snowflake.

«In a snowflake, just an ordinary snowflake, we can find a fascinating tale of the spontaneous emergence of pattern and form. From shapeless water vapor, complex structures emerge in an airborne symphony of meteorological morphogenesis. Snowflakes are the product of a rich synthesis of physics, mathematics, and chemistry -- and they're fun to catch on your tongue.»

-- Kenneth Libbrecht and Rachel Wing. "Snowflake: Winter's Frozen Artistry"

Besides of very interesting content, i was impressed by quality of snowflake photos in the book. Kenneth Libbrecht's snowflake photography is real inspiration for me.

In new revision of the book (2015), authors also introduced other snowflake photographers (including my mom and myself) with examples of their work, showing different approaches to snow crystal macro photography. We both very proud of it!

Kenneth and Rachel's book can be ordered at Amazon.com.
More books available on Kenneth's famous website SnowCrystals.com.

Also, don't miss excellent snowflake book by Don Komarechka - Sky Crystals: Unraveling the Mysteries of Snowflakes:

Decided to change name of blog. New name taken from amazing short story "The Keys to December" by Roger Zelazny, one of my favourite writers. This story, though takes place in cold world, in distant future, have strong relation to our world and our time.

During their last month of duty, Sanza asked him, "Will everything die here but us? The green birds and the big eaters of flesh? The funny little trees and the hairy caterpillar?"

"I hope not," said Jarry. "I've been reading back through the biologists' notes. I think life might adapt. Once it gets a start anywhere, it'll do anything it can to keep going. It's probably better for the creatures of this planet we could afford only twenty Worldchangers. That way they have three millennia to grow more hair and learn to breathe our air and drink our water. With a hundred units we might have wiped them out and had to import coldworld creatures or breed them. This way, the ones who live here might be able to make it."

"It's funny," she said, "but the thought just occurred to me that we're doing here what was done to us. They made us for Alyonal, and a nova took it away. These creatures came to life in this place, and we're taking it away. We're turning all of life on this planet into what we were on our former worlds - misfits."

-- Roger Zelazny. "The Keys to December"

This book written by my friend from Canada, professional photographer Don Komarechka (Website, Google+, Facebook, Flickr). This excellent 9x9" size hardcover book (containing 304 pages), along with fantastic snowflake photography, will detail the science, photography techniques and even delve into why we find snowflakes beautiful.

"The book contains all of my snowflake images, and will detail every photographic and editing technique used in their creation � and I encourage you to try it for yourself! The book also contains all of the science and physics of snowflakes that I can share without personally having a degree in molecular dynamics. I�ll keep the explanations easy to understand and graphic, but the science is fascinating and there are still many unanswered questions." -- Don Komarechka.

Don's snowflake photography truly amazing, much better than my own efforts. He kindly spent a whole page describing my snowflake photography approach.

The book can be ordered at Don's website - skycrystals.ca:

Book cover



Don checked quality of print process at all stages:



Two examples of Don's snowflake photography:

(photographs in this post and the book cover (c) Don Komarechka, posted with his permission)

Here is another amazing work by Don Komarechka: ultra high resolution poster:

Also, don't miss excellent snowflake book by Kenneth Libbrecht and Rachel Wing - The Snowflake: Winter's Frozen Artistry: