CollectionsWilson A. Bentley became fascinated with the crystalline structure of individual snowflakes on his parent’s Vermont farm. By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and after years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snowflake in 1885. In 1903, he sent 500 prints of his snowflakes to the Smithsonian, hoping they might be of interest to Secretary Samuel P. Langl
