For 2012, I made a wish and some resolutions. I wished for a little snow, and I resolved to focus on fewer things and learn more about my camera and photography. All of those were made because I heard about my First Fridays artist of the month, Wilson Bentley.
A self-educated farmer in Vermont, Bentley was the first person to photograph a single snowflake in 1885 . His obsession with the world of photomicrography and the tiny crystals led him to snap pictures of more than 5000 individual flakes. As you might have guessed, no two were alike. We learned that from Bentley’s work, and so Bentley became known as The Snowflake Man.
At the time that he began his work, he didn’t have all the fancy equipment even little ol’ me has. He rigged up a microscope to a bellows camera, stood out in the cold for hours at a time, sifted through falling flakes and one-by-one captured what fell around him. Bentley said, “It seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others.”
That’s the point of photography, isn’t it? Not just to document the world, but to capture it as you see it so your vision can be shared. Photography expands our world, because like the snowflake, no two viewpoints are alike. What do you hope to see, do or share this year?
You can read more about Wilson Bentley on the museum website or order a book of his photos while you wish for a few winter flakes.
