Stars in my pocket like grains of sand

Snowflake photo: Stars in my pocket like grains of sand (2560 x 1920)

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

I borrow this title from sci-fi book, written by amazing author Samuel R. Delany.

This is tiny cluster of two stellar dendrite snowflakes: large and medium size. It was flat, and perfectly fits in focus without focus stacking technique. I like star shapes and elegant structure of this pair, and their sharp edges, without any traces of melting.

7 identical RAW photos was taken as fast series, aligned and averaged to improve SNR (signal/noise ratio) of this picture. I've used only diffused light of cloudy sky, dark grey wool fabric as background; and macro setup, containing Canon Powershot A650is and lens Helios 44, reversely mounted in front of camera as additional magnifier.

Here is slightly different version: without my usual blue color toning. As you can see, completely grey wool fabric shows color variances at high magnification:

Snowflake macro photo: Stars in my pocket like grains of sand (grey), pair of stellar dendrite snowflakes with complex structure, glowing on dark grey background

Snowflake photo: Stars in my pocket like grains of sand, grey variant (2560 x 1920)

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

And this is version with blur background. I've done it easily, because already had precise isolation mask, created at early processing stage:

Snowflake macro photo: Stars in my pocket like grains of sand (blur), two stellar dendrite snowflakes with complex structure, glittering on dark cyan blurred background

Snowflake photo: Stars in my pocket like grains of sand, blur variant (2000 x 2000)

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

Here is another stellar dendrite snowflake, also taken at dark textured backdrop, and processed in same technique:

Snowflake picture: Rigel - stellar dendrite snow crystal with sharp ornate arms, glowing on dark cyan textured background

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here you'll find snowflake photo wallpapers in numerous resolutions and screen proportions, up to Ultra HD 4K.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.