Caught on a bed of black velvet...

In honor of the season I bring you the pictures of scientist Wilson Alwyn Bentley born in 1865 he is the first known photographer of snowflakes, which earned him the nickname "Snowflake" (it's that a marvelous nickname, wouldn't you like to be remembered by one of your great loves, like Sally "Cupcake" Moore or Elisabeth "Coral" Smith?). He tried drawing snowflakes first at around age 15, but they melted too quickly, so he mastered a techinque of capturing them on black velvet and photographing them (and isn't that such a lovely technique, to be a chill falling crystal who's fall is broken on a bed of midnight, lush velvet?). Bentley poetically described snowflakes as "tiny miracles of beauty" and snow crystals as "ice flowers." All poetic and artistic parts aside he was the first American to record raindrop sizes and was one of the first cloud physicists.
Some of his beautiful images (these are actual snowflakes, not representations).



I find it equally tragic and fitting that he died of pneumonia in 1931.