In January I will begin a year long project of photographing Walden Pond. This is where Henry David Thoreau lived for two years in 1844-45 to find the meaning of life, and was the subject of his book published in 1854. Recently, I was speculating on what images Thoreau might have taken of the area had he used a camera at the time. Out of curiosity I used some of the photos I took for my previous blog and converted them using Alien Skin's Exposure 4 software that can mimic older photographic processes.
The four images above are what the photos might look like using the wet collodion process. This process began in 1850 and would have been available to a photographer who went back to capture images to illustrate Thoreau's book.
The photo below mimics the Daguerreotype process. This was the first photographic process and was in existance in the United States by 1840. It would have been available when Thoreau lived in the woods near the pond.
We've come a long way technically in 150+ years of photography, as a comparison of these images with the modern digital versions below illustrates.
I'm looking forward to seeing your postings on the Walden Pond project. I used to live near there and one of my favorite summer delights was to take a dip in the clear cool water on a sunny weekend or a hot summer evening.
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