No two snowflakes are alike...

"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley 1925

I absolutely love picture books.  When the weather gets cooler, the night's longer and what seems like darker and darker, nothing beat getting under the covers and reading and looking at the illustrations in a great picture book.

One of the first picture books that I really got into as an adult is "Snowflake Bentley" by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and illustrated by Mary Azarian.  It follows the true story of Wilson A. Bentley and his fascination with snow living in Jericho Vermont in the late 1800's

The woodcuts by Mary Azarian add alot of visual depth to the book.  I highly recommend checking out her other works.  She is very talented and is able to capture alot of the things I love about living in the northeast with her art.

"A self educated farmer, Bentley attracted world attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography, most notably his extensive work with snow crystals (commonly known as snowflakes). By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885"

Wilson Bentley  and his franken-camera

A further exploration of Bentley's process reveals an impressive amount of hardwork and passionate determination.  He had to take the photographs before the tiny crystals melted and disappeared forever. It also involved being ready to catch snow for studying in all kinds of crazy weather and working in an unheated barn for hours!!

one of Bentley's photographs

A trip to the "Snowflake Bentley" museum is definitely high on my list of places to get to some day.  You can learn more about "Snowflake Bentley" here...