Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley Always Looked Forward to a Good Snow Storm

For Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, the best season of the year was always winter. And when it was snowing, no matter how hard, he would be out in the middle of the storm with his microscope and camera, capturing snowflakes on a black velvet sheet. In the late 1880s, there no airport delays, no stranded travelers, no cars stuck in the snow. In those days, Americans were not nearly as mobile as they are today. As the 20th century began, snowstorms brought a difference set of problems.

For "Snowflake" Bentley, a farmer in Vermont, there was little to worry about. Falling snow brought pure joy. A good snow storm was another opportunity to follow his passion: Photographing snowflakes. Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley relished falling snow flakes. He brought the intricate beauty found in snowflakes to many people by publishing his images and articles in the leading magazines and journals of the early 20th century.

Wilson Bentley perfected a method a capturing individual flakes, getting them onto a slide and placing them under a microscope with a camera attached. He was able to capture the beauty of individual snow flakes by photographing the details of each flake, before they disappeared forever. He had to work fast, because even at cold temperatures, snowflakes will sublimate and quickly disappear.

Sublimation is the process by which ice transfers into directly into a gaseous state. It is a much slow process when compared to evaporation. However, since the ice crystals found in snow flakes are so small, the details within the snow flakes disappear within a few minutes of the formation of the snowflake. Wilson Bentley set out to prove the theory that no two snowflakes are created alike, and of the thousands of pictures that he took, he did never did find any snow flakes that were the same.

Wilson Bentley was born in 1865 in Vermont. He lived on his family farm and quickly became interested in weather. During the late 1800's, while still in his teens, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley began the task of taking thousands of pictures of individual snowflakes. At first he tried to sketch the flakes with pad and pencil. However, he found that much of the detail was lost as sublimation took place so quickly.

So with no formal scientific training, Wilson Bentley devised a creative method to capture his images of his flakes before they disappeared into thin air. Snowflakes were captured on a black velvet sheet and placed on a microscope slide before they melted or sublimated. With a camera he attached to the microscope, he photographed thousands of snowflakes. The device he created to attach the camera to the microscope was one earliest works the field of micro-photography. Late in life, he published his work in various professional journals and popularized the phrase that "no two snowflakes look alike."

Because of the beautiful photographs he took, and the eloquent style he used to describe his work in various magazines and his books, people were able to appreciate the intricate detail found in snow flakes. Imagine the trillions of flakes and crystals that are created and destroyed each day, yet in theory, none of their designs are alike. They are created in an instant, and then disappear forever. Bentley's collection of snowflake photograph have been acquired by many universities throughout the world.

Snowflake Bentley contracted pneumonia after a long and hard trek to his farm in the winter of 1931. He died at his farm on December 23, 1931. His legacy lives on in the beautiful photographs of snowflakes in that transcends science and art.