Amazing Close Up Photos Of Snowflakes Will Give You Goosebumps.

We all know that no two are alike. Nevertheless, seeing a snowflake super duper uber close-up is still breathtaking and these macro photographs by Russian photographer Alexey Kljatov will prove that.




These images of snowflakes and snow crystals were photographed in Moscow by Kljatov, who simply taped a $50 lens (an optics Helios 44M-5) to his Canon Powershot A650, a point and shoot camera, as shown below.



His 'processed' shots of the snowflakes are multiple shots averaged to boost signal/noise ratio and reveal subtle details. You can compare his source shots to his processed shots in the image below.



Alexy photographs the snowflakes and water crystals in two different ways. The first is to capture the snowflakes on the open balcony of his house, mostly on glass surface, lit by an LED flashlight from opposite a side of glass, as shown below:



The second way is to shoot them in natural light, using dark woolen fabrics as the background, as shown in the photos below:




The results are astounding. Just take a look at these 25, photographed on a grey wool background and taken in natural light.


























images courtesy of Alexey Kljatov (aka ChaoticMind75 on flickr)


Alexey describes the process in his own words here

More and higher resolution photos of these macro snowflakes can be found at his Flickr account.




Medium size snowflakes, around 4 mm. 8 serial shots averaged to boost signal-to-noise ratio. Background: dark woolen fabric, natural light (gray clouded sky), external optics Helios 44M-5, january 2013, Moscow

Giant LEGO Snowglobe Features 14 London Landmarks For Christmas.

For the past few years, the first LEGO Certified Professional in the UK, Duncan Titmarsh of Bright Bricks, has created large LEGO sculptures for Christmas and displayed them in various public venues in the UK. Last year, it was a giant LEGO Advent Calendar in London's Covent Garden’s West Piazza and in 2011, the World's Larget LEGO Christmas Tree (35 feet tall) displayed at St. Pancras station.









This year, London’s Covent Garden’s West Piazza celebrates the launch of the world’s first LEGO Snow Globe. It features an inflatable snowglobe in which LEGO sculptures of 14 London landmarks including Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the London Eye, The Battersea Power Station and Big Ben are placed. The snowglobe, which can be walked into via an archway, took six people over 75 days to build, used 120,000 LEGO bricks and stands over 3 meters tall.





some close-ups:







The Snow Globe and its festive scene of London will be open to the public free of charge from November 14th to December 22nd.

Duncan speaks about his LEGO Snowglobe:


Images courtesy of Bright Bricks and London Mums Magazine