The First Snowflake Photos (1885)

in Art, Photography | January 19th, 2011 2 Comments

Back on a Ver­mont farm in 1885, Wil­son A. Bent­ley attached a micro­scope to a bel­lows cam­era and became the first per­son to pho­to­graph an indi­vid­ual snowflake. Two decades lat­er, he sent 500 prints of his snowflakes to the Smith­son­ian, where they still remain. (View some here.) And then, yet anoth­er two decades lat­er, he pub­lished a book packed with 2,400 snowflake images. NPR’s web site has more of Bent­ley’s work on dis­play. And, of course, you can find an entire trib­ute site ded­i­cat­ed to his win­tery work…


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