Wilson A. “Snowflake” Bentley (1865–1931), born in Jericho, Vermont, USA, is the first known photographer of snowflakes. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they either melted or evaporated.
He photographed more than 5,000 “crystals” in his lifetime. His process was to capture them on a blackboard, and then shuffle them onto black velvet. You can see more of his collection here.
3 responses to “The Man Who Photographed Snowflakes”
Wow, that is amazing. To think that those snowflakes look the way they are when they are created naturally and the fact of those photos taken around 1900.
i love them
‘Wow.To think that millions of tiny cristals could be pictured on a blanket of black velvet. Wow. Now that we have the technology to have pictures of snowflakes,I wonder if we might be able to photograph wind.’