Learn

The beautiful and unique quality of snowflakes fascinated a young farmer in Vermont. He saw each snowflake as “a masterpiece of design” and he mourned its melting because that particular and individual “miracle of beauty” would be lost for all time.

Wilson A. Bentley is the young man in question. He was born in 1865 and by the time he was 20 he made history as the first person to photograph a snowflake!

You can imagine the difficulties involved. How do you catch a fragile snowflake without damaging it and take a picture before it melts?

From the time he was quite young, Bentley worked hard to educate himself. He spent years experimenting with the photographic equipment of his day. He eventually adapted a microscope to his bellows camera and pioneered in photomicrography (taking pictures of items so small that they can only be seen by magnifying them).

In 1885 he took the first photograph ever of a snowflake. Of course he did his work outside. His camera was mounted on a table that came to chest height. He would wait for a snowflake to land on a small, flat, black platform attached to his microscope/camera and promptly take the picture.

His new capability to capture and record the intricate and momentary delicacy of each snowflake only fueled his passion further. He went on to take more than 5,000 photographs! Bentley never found any two snowflakes to be alike!

Everyone in his small hometown of Jericho, knowing him and his love of snowflakes, affectionately called him “Snowflake” Bentley. After preserving so many snowflakes on film for us all to study and enjoy, “Snowflake” Bentley died on December 23,1931 at his family farm.