First Photograph of a Snowflake

Date: January 15, 1885 • Location: Washington, United States

Wilson Bentley (pictured) took the first known photograph of a snowflake by attaching a bellows camera to a microscope.

Wilson Alwyn Bentley, also known as Snowflake Bentley, was an American meteorologist and photographer, who was the first known person to take detailed photographs of snowflakes and record their features. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet such that their images could be captured before they either melted or sublimated, and elaborated the theory that no two snowflakes are identical.