My body folded into itself to stay warm as I hunched over a waist-high tripod. My back was starting to ache; I mean, my posture is horrible in the first place, but mix the frigid air with a way-too-low camera, and I may as well start answering to the name Quasimodo.
I caught the falling snow with a piece of glass, examined it under a macro lens, found nothing, wiped it clean, and repeat. The snow hardly resembled a flake of any kind. Shards and clumps of ice were all I saw.
Two hours into this I was ready to pack up the gear and head to some warmer ground… like the floor of my apartment. I could almost feel my toes again as I thought of my snuggly Gracie Lou.
I took the last images of the last snow catch and reviewed them on the screen. That’s when I saw it, down at the bottom of the frame: my first fully-formed snowflake!
The universe has a way of taking me right to that line before my breaking point. My excitement pushed me through the pain well past 2 am that night.
Persistence pays off.

Just as I was about to give up, I discovered this little ice gem.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
I think as artists, if we didn’t persist, we wouldn’t be here, creating, pushing through those moments of doubt and failure. We all have those moments. Persistence is what gets us past them and often, through persistence, we come up with something even better than we could have imagined. It’s that reward after the persistence that keeps us coming back, and yes, persisting!
It’s true! Giving up gets you nowhere. Now if I could only work on my patience… =P