A Real Reindeer In The
Sky 
Monday, December
10th, 2007
Alan Blacklock/NIWA
Now you can tell your kids for a fact that
there are reindeer in the sky. Check out this lucky shot that
photographer Alan Blacklock caught of a cloud formation that looks
strikingly similar to the profile of a Christmas reindeer. Isn't
that amazing?
Blacklock, a photographer for NIWA in New Zealand, was sitting at home in his
back yard in the suburbs of Paparangi late one Sunday afternoon, when he
looked up and saw what resembled a white reindeer decoration etched into
the cornflower blue sky.
"I was just in the right place at the
right time," he said. "It was a fluke, just one of those
things."
Ah, but Alan. That is no fluke.
Is it a
fluke how large and fluffy the snowflakes are on Christmas Day,
how much softer they seem to float from the sky? How
every single little individual one is feathered in its own completely
unique design? If you took snowflakes to a microscope - which
would be nearly impossible, as the light would likely melt them on the
spot - you would find so much more miraculousness.
Of course,
other accounts of the deer in the
sky conclude with the result of the wind speed in various directions on
one cloud level...blah-di-blah-di-blah.
I call e'm like I see
'em: that was no accident.
Photos of real snowflakes.
Wilson Alwyn "Snowflake" Bentley, the first known photographer of
snowflakes, invented the process of catching flakes on black velvet and
photographing them before they could melt.
Left, actual snowflake
photographed by "Snowflakes" Wilson Bentley; Right, depiction of the
Star of Bethlehem
"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of
beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and
appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of
design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake
melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was
gone, without leaving any record behind." -Wilson "Snowflake"
Bentley, 1925
Comments > >
More News
>> |
RSS Feed
