Celestial Snow: The Intersection of Art and Science in Julie McNally's Photography
01/02/2025 03:04PM ● By Haley Watkins
Photos courtesy of Julie McNally.
Ever wonder what it takes to make a powder day in Steamboat Springs? Photographer Julie McNally set out to answer that question, offering a closer look at what makes these days so special. Her “Steamboat Powder Collection” features close-up shots of snowflakes that fell in Steamboat – each snowflake captured as it landed on her gloved palm. In addition to snowflakes, Julie’s collection includes ski and snowboard action shots, as well as her “Steamboat Night Sky Collection,” which showcases meteors, comets and the Northern Lights.
While her two collections – snowflakes and celestial images – may seem different, Julie sees similarities as they reflect her deep connection to nature. “The seasonal lifestyle influences my work the most,” she says. “I’m always waiting for the right conditions, whether it's summer skies or winter action shots. You roll from one season to the next, and I love capturing the entire cycle. It’s all about being ready to capture the moment, no matter what conditions I’m dealing with.”
Julie has always had a deep interest in astronomy, and when she learned about the telescope at Colorado Mountain College, she eagerly reached out to CMC professor Paul McCudden, who runs the Sky Club. After sharing some of her photographs, she was invited to photograph nebulas and galaxies through the telescope at the Ball Observatory. This marked the beginning of an exciting collaboration, as Julie soon joined a research project focused on binary double stars. Working alongside Professor McCuddon and a fellow researcher, they captured images of double star candidates and recorded their observations to determine whether the stars were gravitationally bound.
In this project, Julie learned the distinction between binary stars – stars that orbit one another due to gravitational forces – and optical double stars, which only appear close together from our perspective, but are not actually bound. “I never expected to see my name on published research in a peer-reviewed journal,” Julie says. “It was so fun to work with them and be back in an academic mindset.”
Her passion for the vastness of the universe extends beyond the stars; Julie also finds deep meaning in the light captured through her camera. “We can only see so much with the human eye,” she says. “The light I capture has traveled for possibly thousands of light-years. That sense of the universe’s vastness is what makes photographing the sky so special.”
The process of creating her snowflake images is complex, a system she is still perfecting. “I use a sensor to collect data at each location,” she says. “The temperature, humidity and time stamp from the photo get recorded in a spreadsheet.” What makes this process challenging is the ever changing weather and waiting for the perfect conditions. “When it is cold and really dry, you get a lot of tiny sized snowflakes, like the size of a pinhead. The snowflakes everyone loves are dendrites, and they usually appear in the temperature range 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit, with a specific humidity.”
This winter, Julie is expanding her scientific work by volunteering with Storm Peak Laboratories, the research facility atop the Morningside Chairlift. There, she’ll photograph various 3-D forms of snow, such as graupel, or soft hail, which is more water-saturated than typical snowflakes. “This will create more challenges for the photos because of the 3-D shape whereas the dendrites are on a flatter surface,” she says.
Julie’s work is on display at her favorite dive bar, T-Bar, and will be featured at Rumor Design during First Friday Artwalk on January 3 from 5-8 p.m. Her “Steamboat Powder Collection” can be found at steamboatpowder.com. For more information, visit her website, www.juliemcnally.com.