My last post on snowflakes showed some of the attempts at photographing a snowflake. While playing around with the camera and trying to get close ups of snowflakes I realized how interesting light reflecting off of them can be so I wanted to photograph snowflakes in the sunlight and see how sunlight reflecting off of these little crystals would look especially after seeing a fresh snow and all of the little sparkling diamonds and their range of colors in the sunlight.

What I found was a little disappointing but still fascinating. On a recent snowfall I went out about 6 hours after it was done and the sun began to shine. It was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit so still well into the freezing temperatures which should preserve the snow. In this short time most of the snowflakes were no longer in their original shapes but melting together to form larger pieces of ice. There were a few snowflakes here and there that had kept the form in which they landed in tact but not many as you can see in the above photo. The sun is reflecting off of one of these snowflakes only hours old.

Looking at the same bright snowflake from another perspective shows the melting even better and how unique an relatively intact snowflake is shortly after a fresh snowfall. I have never taken time to look closely at a recent snowfall so it was fun to discover how they transform in such a short time.

I tried many different ways to capture single snowflakes and their unique shapes without any success as you can see in the photo above. Still, I find it interesting to see the ridge of larger ice crystals formed by the melting taking place in the sunlight on this juniper tree.

In areas that have had more time in the sunlight the progression was even further as all of the snowflakes had melted into larger pieces of ice which reflected the sunlight beautifully. As they continue to melt further in the warm sunlight they create icicles. Fascinating and beautiful.