Antique Way

Snow Crystal Photographs

Snowflakes are temporary works of art. After just a few short minutes on the ground, a fallen snowflake will lose its ornate structure, its unique pattern that will never again be repeated. Photography allows us to preserve a few of these minute masterpieces and to examine their form up close.

The first book of snow crystal photographs was Snow Crystals, by Wilson Bentley (1865-1931). A Vermont farmer, Bentley made snowflake photography his life-long passion, eventually capturing some 5000 images on film.

His efforts eventually came to the attention of W. J. Humphreys of the U.S. Weather Bureau, who worked with Bentley to publish nearly 2000 photographs in 1931, just before Bentley's death [1]. The publication of this book, more than any other event, introduced the world to the beauty, complexity, and diversity of snow crystals.

Another classic book on this subject is Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial, by Ukichiro Nakaya, published in 1954 [2]. Nakaya was the first person to closely examine the science of snow crystals, and he was the first to create snow crystals in the laboratory. Nakaya's book includes a rich variety of photographs and tells a fascinating story of the true nature of snow crystals and their different forms.

A sampling of Nakaya's photographs is shown at right, and more can be found here. Additional photographs of Nakaya's laboratory-made snow crystals can be found at the Designer's Page.

The first is the museum book at the Nakaya Museum of Snow and Ice in Kaga city, which includes a number of excellent photographs by Rokuro Yoshida. These images were taken using the technique of dark-field illumination, which produces the effect of bright crystals on a dark background. Click here for a virtual tour of this museum.

The second book comes from the Snow Crystals Museum at Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan. I believe these photos were taken by Yoshinori Furukawa, who also exhibits some snowflake pictures at his Fascination of Snow Crystals web site. Click here for a virtual tour of this museum.

William Wergin has developed techniques for taking snow crystal photographs using an electron microscope, which is capable of examining very fine details in their structure. A number of these images can be seen at the Electron Microscopy Unit Snow Page.

There are only a small handful of snow crystal photographers in the world; I estimate the ratio of snowmobilers to snow crystal photographers is roughly a million to one! I have to say I'm at a loss to explain such a high ratio.

Snow crystal photography requires some expensive equipment and spending long hours in the cold, but so does snowmobiling. Here are a few other collections of photographs you can find on the web.

Scientific photographer Ted Kinsman has assembled a collection of snow crystal photographs from Rochester, NY, that can be viewed at Kinsman Physics Productions.

The image at left is from that collection. Nature photographer Mark Cassino has posted a collection of images from Kalamazoo, MI, at Mark Cassino Photography, which includes the image at right.

Central Hokkaido, Japan, serves up some pretty good snowflakes, and they have attracted a number of photographers. The image at left is one from a small online collection by H. Uyeda that can be viewed at Snow Crystal Gallery.