The Story of Snow is featured in today’s USA Today’s Book Roundup - in an article entitled Weather the Winter with a Picture Book. The book is described as “an artistic science lesson about the rise and fall of snow crystals.” The article also features Carl’s Snowy Afternoon by Alexandra Day, Life in the Boreal Forestby Brenda Z. Guiberson, illustrated by Gennady Spirin and Testing the Ice: A True Story About Jackie Robinson by Sharon Robinson, illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

You can read the on-line version here:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2010-01-21-roundup21_ST_N.htm

Last night I spoke at the Grand Rapids Camera Club and provided a demo of how to take snow crystal photo. The turnout was great with well over 100 people in the room, and it was a lot of fun. A splendid time was had by all.

The presentation is a bit of a stroll down memory lane and the evolution of the process I use to take snow crystal photos. Of course, it starts at the beginning, with the very first snow crystal shots I managed to make. Here they are - from the winter of 1998/99. It was my second or third try at it, only very small crystals were falling, and on a wing and prayer I snapped a few shots with a high magnification setup, manual flash, and ancient Spotmatic film camera. I was really happy with the results, but it was the end of the season and there were no more opportunities that winter.

It took me a few more years till I was able to duplicate these results, but these photos gave me the inspiration to keep on trying…

I’ve been posting more in the Story of Snow blog these last few weeks, so if you are interested in what’s happening with the book or in some fastinating articles about frost by Jon Nelson, hop over there - the url is:

www.storyofsnow.com