December 20th, 2015: Snowflakes
 

Snowflake photos are always cool, and photographing them is a challenge. We've all been out and had a particularly large and complete snowflake land on a sleeve or glove. One large enough to see how intricate they can be. Now you might whip out your phone and get a somewhat decent picture of it but to get a good shot would be complicated and frustrating. Lighting? They melt easy. Don't breath on them either. And no quick move that would blow them away.

Alexey Kljatov is a pro, so he knows about optics. There's still the problem of finding the flake and getting it to pose. ...... http://cellar.org/2015/snowflake1.jpg

I would imagine it would take some fancy, expensive, equipment but Kljatov had enough optical stuff laying around to pull it off.
He jerry rigged it all together with a homemade holder.
http://cellar.org/2015/snowflake2.jpg

I'm guessing it took some time to get everything aligned and nailed and taped solid. I hope the snowflake wasn't waiting.
It's ironic, I think of a pro surrounded with $50 grand worth of equipment and an amateur jerry rigging a Brownie, but to do this job it's the other way round. :smack: