DENVER — When the snow falls, most of us are probably already thinking of ways to get it out of the way, via shovel or plow. Jason Persoff takes a different approach.
“I had to learn a lot of meteorology to become a storm chaser,” he said.
So when winter weather arrives, Persoff heads outside to collect snowflakes. He is a physician and a photographer, earning the nickname "The Stormdoctor."
“I’m looking at a water droplet, some dust and crystallization falling lightly from the sky, and it’s amazing,” he told Denver7.
He catches the flakes on a black wool sock, picks out a subject, and points his camera lens. He magnifies the snowflake about a thousand times or more, and clicks.
“Blown away, blown away. That’s incredible. It’s like looking at a tiny magnification of these jewels. Wow, they are all out there,” Jason’s wife, Irma, said.
The resulting photos are so detailed, they almost look fake.
“When I find that right one, it's magical,” Jason said. “I am constantly finding another snowflake that is so cool, it out-cools the other one.”
Persoff encourages others to try the hobby, with one piece of advice: Patience.
“Snowflake conditions can change by the minute. Snowfall in five minutes change from being really photographical to maybe, it's not going to be good conditions today,” he said.
To see more of the ‘Stormdoctor’s’ flake photos, head to https://stormdoctor.smugmug.com/Snowflakes-and-Winter/.
