Photography by Chris

Harder than it looks

Wilson A. Bentley (1865-1931) is famous for pioneering snowflake photography. He was a Vermont dairy farmer who took over 5,000 photographs of snowflakes. Now that I’ve tried my hand at it, I can sincerely admire that patience, skill, and cold this man must have endured in order to capture such stunning beauty.

Why is it so difficult?

Capturing images of snowflakes is extremely difficult for several reasons:

1. They melt. If you even slightly heat these tiny crystals they turn into a sad little water droplet.
2. They are very small. Even in perfect snowfall conditions, it the ice cyrstals of snowflakes are very tiny and capturing them can be extremely difficult.
3. Hard to find. Snowflakes often fall as clumps, or ice, or are blown around. You need gently falling snow to be able to happen upon a photo worthy specimin.

Wilson Bentley spent years perfecting his setup in order to capture the stunning images we have all seen. It was with hubris that I set out to capture snowflakes and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I was met with unexpected challenges.

The results

I spent an afternoon trying to capture snowflakes and here is the best image I was able to capture:

More to follow!