Snowflakes Make Great Photography Subjects

We receive a lot of great books at the GoNOMAD.com office, simply by asking for them. Among this week's crop was a wonderful little volume called the Field Guide to Snowflakes. It is a close-up look at one of nature's wonders, those geometrically perfect creations that sprinkle down from the heavens. Author Ken Libbrecht gets to the heart of one of the age-old questions--are there really never two snowflakes alike?

He shows a photo of two flakes that fell one after another...they appear to have the same overall six-sided shape. But a closer examination shows tiny variances within the same shapes. He compares snowflakes to fifteen books on a shelf. There would be fifteen ways to arrange the first book, fourteen for the second, thirteen for the third etc. If you multiply it out, you will find there are over a trillion ways to arrange just fifteen books. "With 100 books, the number of possible arrangements is vastly greater than the total number of atoms in the entire universe."

Photographing snowflakes requires the use of a homemade flake catcher, a digital SLR, and this advice: "When a promising subject appears, carefully pick it up using a small artist's paintbrush, and place it on a glass microscope slide. The crystals stick to the brush surprisingly well, without suffering much damage, so the transfer is easier than you might think."