We’ve been hearing since we were born that no two snowflakes are exactly alike, but we had no way of knowing, did we? Well, a few Instagrammers, like Michael Peres and Alexey Kljatov are trying to prove it by taking photographs and videos (below) of snowflakes from up close, using microscopes.

A professor of photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Peres developed an obsession with “photomicrography” of snow crystals more than a decade ago. Kljatov, too, started photographing snowflakes around that time.

Peres’s process is fairly simple, but requires a lot of precision. He catches the snow crystals on a black velvet tray (below) and transfers them to a glass slide beneath a microscope lens glass using a needle. He has to take his pictures or videos quickly, before the snowflakes evaporate. The entire process must ideally take less than a minute.

There are 35 distinct categories of snowflakes that vary according to the temperature and humidity, which have been documented in great detail by these Instagrammers. And, most importantly, the pictures are beautiful.

You can see more of Peres and Kljatov’s work with snowflakes here and here, respectively.