When the landscape became a beautiful winter paradise with frost covering all it could touch during the first week of this year, I noticed the snow glistening a little more than unusual. Upon closer inspection I saw frost crystals on top of the snow covered ground. Examining these even closer, I noticed a variety of amazing ice crystals and immediately began trying to capture these with the camera. Fortunately I had been keeping the camera in a cold location so it was ready to be used outside. Just grab a battery and head to the snow covered yard.

This certainly was not an easy, or quick task. Finding the crystals was not too challenging. All I had to do was scan the snow from different angles and let them reflect in the sunlight similar to what you see in the picture above. The more difficult piece was to find them with the camera using a macro lens which only allows you to view a very small area in focus. Once identified with the camera, then it was getting the right angle for light to reflect showing each little groove of these crystals which can be seen in the photograph below. Once the camera was in place, these little ice formations came to life. Seeing each groove showing the stages these frost crystals grew in was extremely interesting. I could just imagine what a time-lapse would look like as these were formed. Then I began to wonder if they were done growing? I imagined so as the sun was out and the temperatures continued to rise.

While scanning the surface of the snow I found an area where melting had started to occur creating unique shapes of clear ice. Looking closer I found this little ‘ice dragon’  which you can see below. I kept working different angles with the camera attempting to find just the right photo showing it’s interesting details. The sun was getting lower in the sky bringing an end to photographing the frost.

It was a lot of fun to see these winter formations and I would have enjoyed spending more time exploring them further but they only last for a short amount of time.