wilson a. bentley - snowflakes

Wilson A. Bentley was the first person to capture the image
of a single snowflake with a camera



fascinated with snowflakes, Bentley rigged up a microscope
to a bellows camera and took images of individual snowflakes

the year was 1885 and the technology became known as
photomicrography




in 1931, Bentley's groundbreaking book "Snow Crystals", recorded
the beautiful designs and fragility of 2,500 snowflakes



"under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles
of beauty; & it seemed a shame that this beauty should not
be seen & appreciated by others.
every crystal was a masterpiece of design, & no one design
was ever repeated.
when a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost."

a few weeks after his book was published, Wilson A. Bentley,
walking through a blizzard, caught pneumonia and died.


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