The First Snowflake Photos (1885)

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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