Yesterday it was -20* Celsius. Not bad, I thought, considering it was -30* last week, and I took my camera out in that. I forgot about the wind chill (-30* C) and the fact that macro photography means holding my pose and my camera as still as possible for long periods of time because the focus has to be perfectly precise, and the exposure, the light settings, have to be adjusted constantly.

One snowflake, as I focused on it, was gently lifted slightly by the breeze, and suddenly burst into light, flashing the sun’s reflected brilliance off every angle of its crystal.

I was intrigued and obsessed, stopping many times to curl my fingers up into my gloves to regain feeling. But I could not stop. I had to mentally tell myself, what will it look like when it is time to stop seeing snowflakes I must capture, and turn around and go into the house? and then I was able to go into the house.

My fingers were quite painful until they warmed up…

*****

There were fresh crystals of snow on every surface, but as much as a slight breath would send them falling down to the deep snow on the ground.

Here’s one snowflake. More tomorrow.