I just used my last snowflake stamp. I love using nature theme stamps on letters I send out. I came across a December 2006 article in The New York Metro Area Update (a montly newsletter sent to postal employees) where I learned these snowflake images were photographed.
A new dimension has been added to the way I ook at snowflakes.
According to the article, entitled What’s in a Snowflake? New York Celebrates the White Stuff on New Stamps, physicist and photographer Kenneth Libbrect attached a microscope to a high-resolution digital camera to photograph individual flakes.
Libbrecht traveled to Alaska, Michigan, and Ontario with his special camera, a heat box for the camera, and a small artist’s paintbrush. In “subfreezing temperatures” he captured the photographic images I thought were paintings. Libbrecht is as dedicated to his craft as Les Stroud. You have to really care to put yourself in a survival situation for art.
The author writes, “Libbrecht calls snowflakes ‘wonderful examples of nature’s art . . . tiny ice sculptures [that] fall from the sky by the millions, waiting to be enjoyed.’” Libbrecht is a gifted scientist, artist and poet.
The article continues:
Snowflakes are ice crystals that form around tiny dust particles falling thousands of feet through moist, frigid air. As they gather water molecules, the crystals blossom into different patterns that vary according to atmospheric conditions . . . The higher the humidity, the longer their branches and side branches, and when the weather grows warmer, they tend to stick together and fall to earth as whimsical puff-balls . . . individual snowflakes . . . are smaller than Lincoln’s nose on a penny.
So, when you look at the four stamps (called a stamp plate by the US Postal Service), the first flake was photographed in Michigan, the second flake in Alaska, and the last two in Ontario.
What a surprise to learn something about the natural world from an article in a USPS company newsletter. Kudos to newsletter editor, Martha Taggart for this. I don’t know who wrote this, but I hope the person submits this to magazines. It’s worthy of broader publication.