{"id":24352,"date":"2024-12-18T16:29:35","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T23:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-doctor-finds-hobby-in-photographing-snowflakes\/"},"modified":"2024-12-18T23:29:35","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T23:29:35","slug":"colorado-doctor-finds-hobby-in-photographing-snowflakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-doctor-finds-hobby-in-photographing-snowflakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado doctor finds hobby in photographing snowflakes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Jason Persoff, a hospitalist at UCHealth University of Colorado hospital, takes photos of snowflakes in the winter outside of his Aurora home. He uses a black sock as a background and uses a telephoto lens to capture the tiny structures. (Courtesy of Jason Persoff)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

At his home in Aurora, Jason Persoff peers out the window of his back porch overlooking a field and a small pond. \u201cI always love it when there\u2019s fresh fallen snow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

December finally delivered weather that was cold and moist enough to deposit a dusting on the porch railing.<\/p>\n

He opens a sliding-glass door. In his hand, he has a camera with a long lens. \u201cThe secret of my operation is here,\u201d Persoff said, with a grin.<\/p>\n

On a table, there\u2019s an LED light and a fluffy black sock. Against that unusual backdrop, snowflakes pop.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Jason Persoff, a hospitalist at the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, takes photos of snowflakes in the winter, as well as storms and spectacular clouds often in the warmer months. (Courtesy of Jason Persoff)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He carefully maneuvers the tiny frozen structures with a toothpick. The camera shutter registers each image.<\/p>\n

Click, click, click.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see they\u2019re incredibly fragile. They\u2019re microscopic glass, essentially. And actually, glass would be even more solid than these snowflakes,\u201d Persoff said, rattling off dozens of images, in quick succession.<\/p>\n

Click, click, click.<\/p>\n

So, I cover the health beat \u2013 why am I telling you about pictures of snowflakes? Let me take you back a few years to early 2020.<\/p>\n

The pandemic hits, with the governor announcing Colorado\u2019s first case. Soon news coverage tells of fresh cases, hospitalizations and deaths.<\/p>\n

I was scrambling to explain how the virus was affecting Coloradans. By phone or Zoom, I talked to a lot of people, including doctors in hospitals.<\/p>\n

One source was Dr. Persoff, a hospitalist at the UCHealth University of Colorado hospital. He helped it manage emergency preparedness, dealing with things like PPE and staffing.<\/p>\n

As the crisis grew and evolved, Persoff helped explain the trends, including when the early surge eased and Colorado could breathe an initial sigh of relief.<\/p>\n

I started following him on Facebook, where he posted about his passion \u2013 not related to medicine or health \u2013 but photography of weather and snowflakes.<\/p>\n

He manages to capture unreal images of bright, intricate crystals on a black background.<\/p>\n

At his kitchen table, Persoff, looking out over his eyeglasses, shows snowflake photos captured over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like this thing was handcrafted, which is what\u2019s spectacular. And this is what\u2019s possible when it gets cold enough to get these incredible snowflakes,\u201d Persoff said.<\/p>\n

Some have broad arms, others delicate branches. Some have bubbles, others look like flowers. \u201cAnd all snowflakes because of the way that water crystallizes will end up being hexagonal. Always.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A photo of a snowflake taken by Dr. Jason Persoff. (Courtesy of Jason Persoff)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A photo of a snowflake taken by Dr. Jason Persoff. (Courtesy of Jason Persoff)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Each is maybe 2 millimeters in width, each with its own ethereal design, due to the way changing weather shapes it. \u201cIt would be almost impossible to have two snowflakes that are alike because of that. Even across the snowflake, there\u2019s no symmetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like people? I ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike people. Most people are asymmetrical!\u201d he said with a hearty laugh.<\/p>\n

And one of a kind!<\/p>\n

As we chat, his cats wander around, occasionally jumping in his lap. Their names are, of course, science-related: Thunder, Helix and Meso, short for mesocyclone. (If you didn\u2019t know, that\u2019s a column of air quickly rotating air that forms in a thunderstorm, often a precursor to a real tornado. I had to look it up.)<\/p>\n

Above a living room mantle, he\u2019s hung a series of enlarged snowflake images. On other walls, there are big prints of tornadoes and spectacular cloud formations.<\/p>\n

\"A
A photo of a snowflake taken by Dr. Jason Persoff. (Courtesy of Jason Persoff)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A photo of a snowflake taken by Dr. Jason Persoff. (Courtesy of Jason Persoff)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In warmer months, he chases storms, taking photos and videos as he roams the plains. A video he shared with me captures the moment a twister forms on the horizon. \u201cLook at that thing!\u201d he shouts, with someone nearby cheering. \u201cWoo hoo!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that I really love about weather from a photographic standpoint is trying to capture the wonder that I feel sitting in the face of either storms or snowflakes about how just amazing the world is,\u201d Persoff said.<\/p>\n

News outlets, like the Washington Post<\/em>, have reported on his photos<\/a>. He has a website<\/a>, where folks can see and buy them and posts instructional videos on YouTube<\/a>. But for Persoff, the joy comes in a spiritual connection to the natural world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a place where I get to experience true serenity,\u201d said Persoff.<\/p>\n

\"Jason
Jason Persoff, with one of his three cats, at his home in Aurora. He stores thousands of images of snowflakes, as well as storms and clouds on his computer. (John Daley\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

It\u2019s a respite from working in a hospital, which he loves, but where it can be hectic and stressful.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery now and again, I need to be reminded that the world is very broad and beautiful, and especially during wintertime,\u201d Persoff said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the things the snowflakes give him.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

that tumbles from the sky this time of year is a one-of-a-kind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,2265,822,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-hobby","tag-photography","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24352"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}