I know not everyone is active on Google+ where I am posting these, so here are 10 of my favourite snowflakes photographed so far this year. There are some extremely beautiful images, from the small-but-stunning:

To the incredibly large:

Check out the gallery and read the descriptions for a little insight. I have many more of these still to put together and winter is far from over. It’s going to be a great year! Check out Google+ if you can’t wait for more, I post one every day.

Its been nearly two weeks since I started a “Snowflake-a-Day” project over on Google+. I’m posting one snowflake image every day for 100 days.

Snowflake-a-Day on Google+ (Add me to your circles!)

The above image is my favourite snowflake image so far this year. While snow seems in short supply so far this winter, I race out every chance I get to photograph the falling crystals. More exciting news soon!

Single water droplets falling into a glass. The first one splashes back up just in time to collide with the second one, falling from above. High-speed photography of these collisions requires precise timing, calculations, and luck:

Awesome, isn’t it? I have a special device for triggering my camera at the precise time, as well as coordinating the water droplets. The Camera Axe 5 with the valve sensor is very much a necessary tool to make these collisions happen, but even still I took over 700 images to get the 7 that I am showing here. Lots of fun experimenting, especially with background refraction:

Check out the gallery below, and let me know what you think! (and I know – it has been forever since my last update. Don’t worry, there are interesting things to post soon!)

I woke up yesterday and was greeted with large clumps of snow falling from the sky. The snow was wet and difficult to photograph, but I made the best of it and came up with this image:

These pillars of ice are snow crystals that form at warmer temperatures. Because the snow was clumping together, occasionally I noticed these pillars of ice in odd structures worthy of photographing. So there you have it, the first “snow flake” of the season – with many more of them to come!

It has begun! Temperatures are dropping below zero at night, allowing me to photograph frost in the morning. This winter I intend to spend a lot of time photographing frost, ice crystals and snowflakes in preparation for a book on snowflakes I’m publishing next year. I can’t wait!

These two photos are taken from the black trim around my car’s windows. This one shows what appears to be rectangular crystal formations. Interesting, as water usually freezes into 6-sided crystals. One study published in 1954 shows ice forming rectangles at very cold temperatures, but I think the more likely explanation is that this is the rectangular edges of hexagonal crystals. Science!

The below photo shows growth of a much more smooth design, almost looking like leaves.

Much more to come at the temperature continues to drop. Stay tuned!