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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.

2 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Public Domain by Skapare · · Score: 5, Informative

    Follow the "snowflakes" link and look at the bottom of the page:

    Copyright/Public domain works
    Wilson Bentley did not copyright his photographs and thus they are in the public domain and free to use for any purpose.
    HOWEVER
    No materials or images from this (or any other) website may be resold in any form (print or electronic).
    The Public Domain status does not give you the right to resell material unless you have access to the original source and permission from the owner to reproduce the material. Any published works of Public Domain material is only "Royalty free" if explicitly stated.

    WTF? Someone just doesn't understand what Public Domain really is.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    1. Re:Public Domain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      (Sigh) Bridgeman v. Corel says otherwise.