Snowflake - Winter Gold

This is my first winter ever. And for my own reasons (some say crazy) I've decided to spend it in Canada, a land where people know what to do with ice and snow, mostly because they have no choice in the matter.

Growing up in Malaysia, where there is no snow to speak of, and where 25 degrees C is considered cold, I've always wondered what it would be like to get a feel and taste of winter. And let me tell you, this season is not letting me down.

There's been all kinds of snow so far. And my greatest discovery to date is that the sparkles we see during a snowfall are actually light bouncing off individual snowflakes!

Fresh crunchy snow usually indicates individual snowflakes. One day, it came down beautifully and the weather was comparatively mild. So I grabbed the camera and various doohickeys, dressed warmly and went out.

It was cold enough outside, but not so much that I suffered: minus 14 degrees Celsius with a minus 20 windchill. Of course, I was outdoors for about an hour, without moving much...

Taking shots like this with my Nikon L12 isn't all that easy either. My lenses aren't exactly macro, they only allow for "close-ups". So I used a loupe (usually used for film negatives), which allowed for an 8x magnification. And because the loupe surrounds the snowflake completely like a dome, I had to be a bit creative in using a penlight as a light source.

This isn't as easy as it sounds, as I have to look for a snowflake in a decent position. If it's flat on the surface, there's it'll just look transparent to my camera. I had to get a snowflake at a 35 degree angle to the surface. It was sort of stuck on another snowflake, which propped it up at a nice angle.

Also, the loupe is plastic, so I had to do some work on the shot in post. This mainly involves adjusting the contrast to compensate for the dodgy lighting.

I love the way the snowflake glows golden in the light. And if you think this snowflake is pretty, think about all the others out there, just waiting to be discovered.


Note:
I've decided to enter this in 's Winter Contest.