Image: Compoundchem.com
However, German meteorologist Gustav Hellmann
and his associate Richard Neuhauss, influenced by
Bentley’s photographs, began taking some of their
own. While Bentley’s photographs show images of
great diversity in shapes, they are dominated by
beautifully symmetrical, six-sided star-like crystals.
Hellmann, on the other hand, found that most of the
photographs his team took showed snow crystals
that were imperfect. Hellmann began publishing
articles decrying the fakery of Bentley’s imagery,
accusing him of cutting out imperfections by
touching up his negative pictures. Bentley admitted
that images were adapted; saying in mitigation that
untouched pictures misrepresented the crystals that
in their truest form were nothing short of perfection.
Bentley’s “photoshopped” images of perfect crystals
continue to dominate our idea of snowflakes and
are widely used in the public domain. Hellmann and
Neuhauss’s images have virtually disappeared; the
public obviously prefers snowflake perfection.
In the article No Great Flakes Helen Pilcher
goes into greater details about the creation
of snowflakes and the video news item Is This
Really What a Snowflake Looks Like from the
Globe and Mail contains some great modern
photographs of 2D snowflakes. For those who
want a real history of the study of snowflakes
the article: The Hidden Secrets of Snowflakes
by Brian J. Ford is a great introduction and
those who want to learn how to photograph
snowflakes will find the illustrated article
Shooting High-Resolution Macro Photos of
Snowflakes by Don Komarechka really helpful.
➽➽ http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Snowflake_
Photography_files/Snowflakes%20final%20
copy%202013-12-21.pdf
➽➽ http://www.brianjford.com/CF20.pdf
➽➽ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/newsvideo/video-is-this-really-what-a-snowflake-lookslike/article7618229/
➽➽ http://petapixel.com/2013/03/19/shooting-highresolution-macro-photos-of-snowflakes/
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