Gardener&#39;s dream

Snowflake macro photo: Gardener's dream, large stellar dendrite snowflake with massive tree-like branches and sectored center, sparkling on light blue gradient background

Snowflake photo: Gardener's dream (2212 x 1659)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, Marketplace.500px.com.

Interior with snowflake print, haning on wall: real snow crystal with ornate tree-like arms and massive sector, divided by six sectors

This snowflake is one of my all-time favorites. This is large stellar dendrite snow crystal (around 5 millimeters from tip to tip), slightly melted and partially covered with small bubbles of rime. It looks unusual, with it's massive tree-like branches and big central hexagon, divided by six sectors. This crystal remind me tiny planet of The Little Prince, which is teared apart by roots of six overgrown baobabs.

I was lucky with lighting of this crystal, and even drops of rime (usually i do not like them) looks not too bad on these "baobab branches". This weird crystal was captured December 2014 in Moscow, Russia, on glass surface with LED back light, using additional lens Helios 44M-5. 11 identical RAW photos, taken as fast series, was averaged to boost signal/noise ratio of final image. After averaging step, i've done my usual post-processing work with the crystal.

Also, i processed this snowflake in different colors:

Snowflake macro photo: Gardener's dream (alternate colors), big stellar dendrite crystal with large tree-like branches and sectored center, glittering on bright blue background

Snowflake photo: Gardener's dream, alternate colors (2212 x 1659)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, Marketplace.500px.com.

Here you'll find realistic vector version of this snowflake and simplified version in two colors (in EPS / SVG formats and high resolution rasterized PNGs). Although automatic vectorization process simplifies snowflake structure and reduces number of colors, but still, i like how it looks, and ability to stretch this snowflake to any size without further loss of details is really great!

This interesting crystal also available as ultra HD wallpaper:

Snowflake photo wallpaper: Gardener's dream, resolution up to Ultra HD 4K, standard and widescreen, 4:3, 5:4, 16:10 and 16:9, free download

Snowfalls of that day, December 26, 2014, bring us good amount of interesting crystals. I've already processed two more snowflakes: Winter technologies and High voltage and have many other good specimens to work with!

Snowflake picture: Winter technologies, small and simple stellar plate snow crystal with glossy relief surface, glittering in cold LED light

Picture of snowflake: High voltage, large snow crystal with simple broad arms and glossy, relief surface, sparkling on bright gradient background in cold LED light

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here is article about snowflake macro photography.