[Snow Crystal]

Wilson Alwyn Bentley American

Not on view

A self-educated farmer from Jericho, Vermont, Bentley was a pioneer in the field of photomicrography. Using a microscope fitted to a bellows camera, he was the first to photograph a single snowflake. For over half a century, he pursued his obsession with the unique forms of snow crystals, cataloguing the endless variations on a basic hexagonal structure. In addition to their formal beauty, Bentley's photographs are fine examples of a typological approach in photography-the use of the camera to collect, describe, and classify the myriad facts of the visual world.

[Snow Crystal], Wilson Alwyn Bentley (American, 1865–1931), Gelatin silver print

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