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19th-Century Photographer Captured 5,000 Snowflakes
tcd004 writes "Wilson Bentley began photographing snowflakes in 1885, and managed to immortalize more than 5,000 crystals before his death in 1931. Now his images are widely recognized and highly sought after. At the age of 19, 'Snowflake' Bentley jury-rigged a microscope to a bulky bellows camera and took the first-ever photograph of a snowflake. Photography then, particularly microphotography, was much closer to science than art. In a 1910 article published in the journal Technical World, he wrote, 'Here is a gem bestrewn realm of nature possessing the charm of mystery, of the unknown, sure richly to reward the investigator." The video embedded at the link above touches on another long-forgotten piece of history: a sketch of the photographers who captured arial views of assemblages of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from WW-I, carefully choreographed and arranged to form a Liberty Bell, a Stature of Liberty, a US flag... as forgotten as the origin of the WW-I term razzle-dazzle.
It should be spelled jerry-rigged is a slight on World War I Germans.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=jerry-rigged
Jury-rigged is apparently an acceptable term derived from French.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=jury
Personally, I spell it jerry but pronounce it jury.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Note though that "temporary" rigging lacks the negative connotation of
"bubblegum & bailing wire" or "mickey-moused" that jerry-rigged implies.
So actually, yeah, the original use of jury-rigged was appropriate here.
Were that I say, pancakes?