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Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Amazing Close Up Photos Of Snowflakes Will Give You Goosebumps.




We all know that no two are alike. Nevertheless, seeing a snowflake super duper uber close-up is still breathtaking and these macro photographs by Russian photographer Alexey Kljatov will prove that.




These images of snowflakes and snow crystals were photographed in Moscow by Kljatov, who simply taped a $50 lens (an optics Helios 44M-5) to his Canon Powershot A650, a point and shoot camera, as shown below.



His 'processed' shots of the snowflakes are multiple shots averaged to boost signal/noise ratio and reveal subtle details. You can compare his source shots to his processed shots in the image below.



Alexy photographs the snowflakes and water crystals in two different ways. The first is to capture the snowflakes on the open balcony of his house, mostly on glass surface, lit by an LED flashlight from opposite a side of glass, as shown below:



The second way is to shoot them in natural light, using dark woolen fabrics as the background, as shown in the photos below:




The results are astounding. Just take a look at these 25, photographed on a grey wool background and taken in natural light.


























images courtesy of Alexey Kljatov (aka ChaoticMind75 on flickr)


Alexey describes the process in his own words here

More and higher resolution photos of these macro snowflakes can be found at his Flickr account.




Medium size snowflakes, around 4 mm. 8 serial shots averaged to boost signal-to-noise ratio. Background: dark woolen fabric, natural light (gray clouded sky), external optics Helios 44M-5, january 2013, Moscow

Big Rice Straw Beasts Sculpted For The Wara Straw Art Festival.




You may or may not have seen images of large sculpted straw beasts, recently being shared all over the internet. Truth be told, they are not new, but are actually a few years old (from 2010 and 2011) from the annual Wara Straw Art festival in Niigata. According to CNN Travel, The Wara Art Matsuri takes place every year in two locations in Niigata, at Kanko Shisetsu Iwamuroya (96-1 Iwamuro Onsen, Nishikan-ku, Niigata) and Uwasekigata park (1 Matsunoo, Nishikan-ku, Niigata).










The festival is an annual celebration of Autumn where local people and college students of Art and Architecture departments create some impressive straw art in Nishikan-ku, an area is said to have the "largest paddy fields in the country," according to Japan Style.













The art is created from rice straw by locals and college students. The structures are made from pipes and wood sticks, then the straw is added, taking about a week per piece to complete.

images are courtesy of Kotaku and CNN Travel




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