Shards of hoarfrost grow from a tree branch near Ralston. (Kinley Bollinger)

Photographer Kinley Bollinger, a high school junior, was getting ready for the day one morning this winter when she noticed the trees outside her kitchen window were coated with hoarfrost. 

“I immediately stopped what I was doing, grabbed my camera and went outside to capture the intricacy of the ice crystals,” she wrote in an email to WyoFile. Bollinger spent the next hour absorbed in the delicate architecture of ice, she said. 

“By the time I was done, my hands were absolutely frozen,” wrote the photographer, who lives near Ralston. “However, getting to photograph the beautiful crystals made having cold fingers completely worth it.” 

For Bollinger, who shot this image on her Nikon D7500 with a macro lens, macrophotography offers an opportunity to zero in on beauty that is so often overlooked — like veins on a leaf or minuscule air pockets in a frozen droplet. 

“This art form allows me to bring attention to the little things in life, which I now realize are not so little after all,” Bollinger wrote. 

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Katie Klingsporn reports on outdoor recreation, public lands, education and general news for WyoFile. She’s been a journalist and editor covering the American West for 20 years. Her freelance work has...

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  1. Great job by Kinley on this photo! She is a proven talent and I am glad for her enthusiasm for her art! We need more young people like her in our community.