It’s true: every single snowflake is unique—and nothing shows this better than photographer Alexey Kljatov’s macro snowflake photography.
Born in Moscow, 46-year-old Alexey still lives in the city. On a winter night in 2008, when the snow started to fall, he went out onto the balcony of his ninth-floor apartment and stood poised with his camera. Later that night, transferring the images onto a high-resolution screen, Alexey saw the results of his macrophotography experiment and was astounded.
Raised by photography-loving parents, Alexey was exposed to the art from a young age. Their Soviet-design equipment was good quality, but it wasn’t until digital cameras appeared that Alexey himself became interested.
“My first subjects were flowers, bugs, and butterflies,” he said. “I also photographed landscapes and cityscapes, especially night city illumination and moon photos at high resolution; I was obsessed with HDR for several years.”
Today, Alexey places his focus solely on snowflake macrophotography; his work sold widely, published by NASA, and featured in outlets such as USA Today and Fox News. The journey started when Alexey stumbled upon snowflake photos by Kenneth Libbrecht on the web.
“Words can’t describe how amazing and unbelievable the snowflakes look in his photos!” he exclaimed. “From that day, I waited for winter like never before, so I could try snowflake photography myself.”
Since that first night out on the balcony, Alexey’s technical skill and his understanding of the magic of water crystals continue to evolve.
His inspiration is the unlimited diversity of snowflake structures:
“Yes, each of these crystals can be classified to limited set of types, and some snowflakes look similar, but almost every snowflake session makes me say ‘Wow!’ when I transfer photos from the camera and see them on the high-resolution screen,” he said.
“Some snowflakes are not symmetrical; some look boring and uninteresting, but many of them are extremely beautiful, and have amazing, strange, and absolutely unique structures, shapes, or inner details.”
Years after starting with just a handheld camera on auto setting, plus a waterproof cover, Alexey has progressed to a far more advanced setup, he says, “with additional optics, tripod, fast serial shooting, and post-processing pipeline.”
While he loves getting out of the city to the Tver region, which he describes as a land of big lakes, woods, and swamps, Alexey says his apartment balcony is still the ideal spot for snowflake photography.
“Just two steps from home on balcony, I can start shooting instantly,“ said Alexey. ”I can shoot any time of the day and night, when I see falling snow from the window. Nobody disturbs me here.”
When doing this type of shooting, the outdoor temperature must be lower than 23–25 degrees Fahrenheit, otherwise the snowflakes melt too quickly, the photographer said, adding, “Shooting on the balcony also means I can go inside when I start to freeze.”
Are there any snowflakes he has found particularly mesmerizing?
One of his most favorite snowflakes he captured was during the previous winter—a stellar dendrite, one of most common types that has a very beautiful center “in the form of a hexagonal 3D pyramid and beautiful arms.”
“Each of them has an outer part which also resembles a snowflake, and this part has a star-like structure with side branches, coming in all directions, even inward. It’s an incredibly rare structure,” he said.
“Another remarkable finding is tiny plate without arms, just about one millimeter from tip to tip, but this tiny thing instantly attracted my attention even when I saw it with a naked eye on a black background: it has a square shape!
“Almost every snowflake has a hexagonal symmetry, or a variation, but this specimen had clearly visible rectangular symmetry not only in its shape, but also in all the inner details.”
Likening snowflake photography to a sort of hunting, fishing, or mineral collecting, Alexey says he’s never sure what he might catch each day. Sometimes, when he’s very lucky, he gets what he calls “super-snowfall.”
“This is when amazing, super, unique snowflakes are everywhere and I point and focus the camera as fast as I can to be able to catch more of the treasures falling around,” he said.
These super-snowfalls are rare events, though, and sometimes very short. But just half an hour can yield amazing photos, worth “several winters of ‘common snow’ shooting.”
Like many photographers, Alexey extols the benefits of Instagram for showcasing his work. He also uses Facebook, is growing a snowflake library on Patreon, and integrates his personal website, alexey-kljatov.pixels.com, with print-on-demand service, FineArtAmerica.
“My main goal is show people just one small part of the unbelievable macro world, unseen by our eyes” he added.
