About Photography

Walden Pond - Thoreau

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."  Henry David Thoreau from Walden, 1854

I am at Walden Pond photographing it for much the same reason that brought Thoreau here to live for two plus years.  I am exploring the possibility of doing a photo book on the area over the course of a year.  

The pond is a simple place in nature.  It has none of the grandeur of the American West. It is an easy subject if all you want is a simple picture to show that you were here.  It is a difficult subject if you want to bring out the subtleties of nature that attracted Thoreau and brought him here to live and explore.

I woke up to a cold, sub-freezing temperature.  The pond had partially frozen over night leaving a thin crust of ice along the shore.  The photo below was taken at sunset after the daily sun had time to melt some of the thin ice that had cracked into geometric patterns.

Taken with a Nikon D800 and 24-70mm lens set to 28mm with an aperture of f/22 to achieve maximum depth of field.