Kenneth Libbrecht is that rare person who, in the middle of winter, gleefully leaves Southern California for a place like Fairbanks, Alaska, where wintertime temperatures rarely rise above freezing. There, he dons a parka and sits in a field with a camera and a piece of foam board, waiting for snow.
Specifically, he seeks the sparkliest, sharpest, most beautiful snow crystals nature can produce. Superior flakes tend to form in the chilliest places, he says, like Fairbanks and snowy upstate New York. The best snow he ever found was in Cochrane, in remote northeastern Ontario, where there is little wind to batter snowflakes as they fall through the sky.
Ensconced in the elements, Libbrecht scans his board with an archaeologist’s patience, looking for perfect snowflakes and other snow crystals. “If there’s a really nice one there, your eye will find it,” he said. “If not, you just brush that away, and you do that for hours.”
More here – QuantaMagazine
