Pioneering snowflake photos by 1800s Vt. farmer Snowman Bentley featured at NYC antiques show
By Ula Ilnytzky, APThursday, January 21, 2010
Vt. man’s vintage snowflake photos for sale in NYC
NEW YORK — Pioneering photographs of jewel-like snowflakes taken by a 19th-century Vermont farmer known as Snowflake Bentley are being sold in New York City.
Starting Thursday, 26 of Wilson A. Bentley’s images are for sale at the four-day American Antiques Show. They are being offered by Chicago’s Carl Hammer Gallery.
Ten of the images are of snowflakes and are priced at $4,800 each. The others show winter scenes.
Bentley also was nicknamed The Snowflake Man. He was obsessed with snowflakes, which he called snow crystals. In 1885, he became the first person to capture a single snowflake with a camera. The technology is known as photomicrography. It basically involves attaching a microscope to a camera.
Bentley’s 1931 book, “Snow Crystals,” features the lacy designs of 2,500 of his snowflakes.
