A self educated farmer, Bentley attracted world attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography, most notably his extensive work with snow crystals (commonly known as snowflakes). By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885.
He would go on to capture more than 5000 snowflakes during his lifetime, not finding any two alike. His snow crystal photomicrographs were acquired by colleges and universities throughout the world and he published many articles for magazines and journals including, Scientific American and National Geographic. In 1931 his book "Snow Crystals", containing more than 2400 snow crystal images, was published by McGraw-Hill but has long been out of print. A soft cover copy, identical in all respects, can be obtained today from Dover Publications, Inc.. On December 23, 1931, Bentley died at the family farmhouse in Jericho. Because of his wonderful work with snow crystals, he became affectionately known as "Snowflake" Bentley.
Wilson Bentley did not copyright his photographs and thus they are in the public domain and free to use for any purpose. The Public Domain status does not give you the right to resell material unless you have access to the original source and permission from the owner to reproduce the material. Any published works of Public Domain material is only "Royalty free" if explicitly stated.http://www.jerichohistoricalsociety.org/
http://vermontsnowflakes.com/ornaments.htm Our official " Snowflake" Bentley Collection Pewter ornaments are designed from original Wilson A. Bentley snow crystal photomicrographs (from the archives of the Jericho Historical Society.) Thank you for placing your order with Vermont Snowflakes. We will contact you if further information is required. For future reference, our email address is snowbliz@aol.com . Please reference order number 2112-2477-9712.
