Wilson Bentley and his development of snowflake microphotography.
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By the winter of 1885, after three years of experimentation, Bentley had finally perfected his technique. When a snowstorm blew through, he would head outside with a black slate to catch flakes as they fell and then examine them with a handheld magnifier. If their patterns weren’t sufficiently intricate, he would whisk the flakes away with the turkey wing, clearing the slate. Once he nabbed a choice specimen, he would retire to a shed where the camera was set up by a window. Using the pointed splint, he would transfer the captured crystal to a microscope slide and press it to the glass with his feather. Then it was a race against the clock to focus the camera and make the lengthy exposure—a task that could take as long as two minutes—before the snowflake melted. He later recalled the day he’d developed his first successful negative as “the greatest moment of my life.”
Bentley photographed avidly for around thirteen years, without attempting to publicize his pictures. His great-great-grandniece Sue Richardson, who works at a small museum in Jericho dedicated to his images, said in an interview that she suspects Bentley figured “he didn’t have anything to share that probably some professor at some big college somewhere in the world didn’t already know.” In 1898, he finally brought his pictures to the University of Vermont, where he met up with George Perkins, the dean of the school’s natural-science department. Perkins was duly impressed, and the next year the pair published a jointly authored paper, “A Study of Snow Crystals,” in Popular Science Monthly, which brought Bentley’s work to a wide audience. During the following decades, Bentley wrote articles, gave lectures, and sold prints to clients that included Tiffany & Co., which purchased a collection to serve as inspiration for its jewelry designs. In 1931, he published a book of his images with the help of the physicist and atmospheric researcher William Jackson Humphreys. In December of that same year, Bentley was returning from a trip to Burlington when he got caught in a snowstorm. The winter had been unusually warm, and, eager to take advantage of this opportunity to photograph, he chose to walk the six miles home to his family farm. He died of pneumonia less than three weeks later.
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