This weekend was the Christmas open house at the Chapman Museum where I do my volunteer work.  Each year there is a different theme for the holidays. This year was featuring Snowflake Bentley, who was the first person to photograph snowflakes through a microscope. It seems appropriate for this post considering all the snow falling across the US.

Bentley lived in Vermont, actually with his mother for his entire life.  He would go outside with a black tray to catch snowflakes. Then he took them to his microscope station in an outbuilding (no heat, obviously) where he would photograph them through the microscope.

This was from a Popular Mechanics Magazine in 1922.  He photographed over 2000 snowflakes and did lectures about them and the technique for photographing through a microscope, as well as publishing a book. Every snowflake has six points and over the years, Bentley never found two alike.

Anyway, here are a few more pictures of the deLong house (part of the museum).  This is the parlor:

Do you see the difference between the two chairs? The one on the right with arms is a man’s chair and the one without arms is for a woman. The reason being a woman needed room for her skirts.

And the couch that I covet there (although I would like a different fabric on it)

The library:

We had a couple of snowflake making sessions to get ready for the season:

These were used in various places, the majority on the tree:

There was live music:

Refreshments that look like snowflakes:

These were found at Aldi’s, by the way. They are really tasty. I need to go find them LOL.

Quite a few people came through, which was great. It was free to attend and view the museum. There were more people than I’ve ever seen in the year that I’ve been there.  It’s good to be a tourist in your own city sometimes.

Here are a couple more photos of snowflakes:

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These are the actual photos taken through the microscope. He never copyrighted any of his photos, so they are all public domain. It really is amazing the difference in all the flakes. Something that you never really think about when it is coming down and accumulating. We are going to get our own share of snow on Tuesday and it sounds like it might be a decent snowfall. Not sure I will be photographing each flake, though!