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Paul Burwell is a professional photographer up in Edmonton, Alberta. He and I (and a couple other guys) shared costs on a wildlife shoot outside Glacier NP a couple of years ago.
Anyway, living in Alberta, Paul sees a bit more snow than we do here in Seattle, and he's started taking pictures of individual snowflakes. He posted one to his blog this morning, and it's fabulous.
As to his technique, when I asked him, he said, "I let the snowflakes fall on my parka, and use a small paint brush to transfer individual, interesting looking flakes from there to a piece of glass where I photograph them."
Beyond that, I expect that he's using a strong, sharp macro lens and a tripod, that the glass is most likely clamped solidly to something so that the plane of the glass is parallel to the plane of the camera's sensor, and that the background color is a piece of cloth positioned several inches behind the glass. Probably a circular polarizer on the lens, and the flake itself is probably not in direct sunlight--note the soft light, and the suggestion of both front- and back-lighting. F-stop is whatever will render the flake in good focus, but throw the background into the land of bokeh.
If I lived somewhere where it actually got cold enough to capture individual snow crystals of a decent size, I would right now be on my way home to get my gear and try this out. Nobody else is here at work anyway.
Anyway, living in Alberta, Paul sees a bit more snow than we do here in Seattle, and he's started taking pictures of individual snowflakes. He posted one to his blog this morning, and it's fabulous.
As to his technique, when I asked him, he said, "I let the snowflakes fall on my parka, and use a small paint brush to transfer individual, interesting looking flakes from there to a piece of glass where I photograph them."
Beyond that, I expect that he's using a strong, sharp macro lens and a tripod, that the glass is most likely clamped solidly to something so that the plane of the glass is parallel to the plane of the camera's sensor, and that the background color is a piece of cloth positioned several inches behind the glass. Probably a circular polarizer on the lens, and the flake itself is probably not in direct sunlight--note the soft light, and the suggestion of both front- and back-lighting. F-stop is whatever will render the flake in good focus, but throw the background into the land of bokeh.
If I lived somewhere where it actually got cold enough to capture individual snow crystals of a decent size, I would right now be on my way home to get my gear and try this out. Nobody else is here at work anyway.
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