Don Komarechka

Don Komarechka is a nature and macro photographer based in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. From auroras to pollen, insects to infrared, much of Don’s photographic adventures reveal a deeper understanding of how the universe works. Exploring the world that we cannot see with our own eyes has been a common thread in Don’s career as a professional photographer.

Always science-minded but never formally trained, Don uses photography as a way to explore and understand the world around him. Photographing something unusual or unknown is the perfect excuse to learn something new. Don’s work often pushes up against the technical limitations of modern camera equipment and the physical limitations of light itself.

Freezing soap bubble

For the past decade, Don Komarechka has been enamoured with the combination of science and art. The deeper these can be woven together, the more magical the outcome. This often requires in-depth knowledge of the subject and extensive time to experiment and explore all possibilities, resulting in many investigational failures before anything photographically beautiful is discovered. Constantly asking the question “what if?” and seeing where the creative journey takes him has been paramount to Don’s success in the photographic field.

These efforts have not gone unnoticed. Don Komarechka has become internationally recognized as a master of macro photography, particularly with his body of work related to snowflakes. Having photographed well over a thousand of these tiny gems, it has become a lifelong obsession. The variety and the level of detail are infinite and the observational science to describe how they form only adds further beauty to their designs. The same level of complex but beautiful details can be seen when a soap bubble freezes solid, like a natural puzzle fitting star-like pieces together in a frozen climate. The process can never be repeated twice, but the resulting imagery can be very creative.

Water droplet refractions on Dandelion seeds

Don Komarechka is as much an artist as he is a photographer. In the area of water droplets, one must construct a subject worth of photographic capture before ever picking up the camera. Hours of tinkering with concepts and ideas to sculpt an attractive subject are almost certainly required, and the pre-visualized concepts always evolve through this process. The resulting subject is fleeting, often only surviving for a moment, and at that moment is captured with finely-tuned photographic techniques. Without modern advancements in photographic equipment and methods, such subjects could never be truly realized and appreciated.

For as much as Don is an artist, he is also an educator that freely shares every element of his creations with the public. There are no secrets, there is nothing held back in the way he describes his work to others. The idea is simple: allowing others to understand everything that goes into an image will only add value and appreciation to the work. There is no fear that someone will replicate the process – in fact, this is encouraged. Any image that is created with the same techniques will be as unique as the photographer creating them. In this way, Don has been featured in nationally syndicated television programs in Canada and has established a respected and growing international following.

Books, Awards & Publications
Don Komarechka is a published author, international educator and public speaker. His work has been featured in numerous galleries and museums including the Canadian Science and Technology Museum, and even on Canadian currency. Having worked for various documentary films from Discovery, National Geographic, BBC and CBC, Don has found himself both behind and in front of the camera detailing the hidden beauty of the natural world.

Sky Crystals: Unraveling the Mysteries of Snowflakes was Don’s first publication that detailed both the science and photography of snowflakes. Macro Photography: The Universe at Our Feet, being published in 2020, aims to be the most comprehensive instructional book on the topic of macro photography ever written. Don Komarechka has also written for many publications including Popular Photography, Outdoor Photographer, Outdoor Photography Canada, Digital Photographer as well as the popular photography website PetaPixel.

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