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The Thoreau Institute
at Walden Woods Library
About Thoreau's Life and Writings
Texts and Links
including Thoreau's contemporaries, his readings, current
scholarship and
related documents
John Suiter
John Suiter is
a Boston writer and photographer who has visited Walden Woods and
pond many times since the early 1970s. He is also the author of
Poets on the Peaks: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac in
the North Cascades, published by Counterpoint Press in 2002. He is
currently at work on a biography of Gary Snyder, to be published in
2007 by Shoemaker & Hoard.
According to Suiter, “I wanted to create an image of Thoreau’s cabin
as it must have appeared to those who visited Henry at his home in
the woods during 1845-46, and one that might possibly be mistaken
for an actual 1845 photograph. That ruled out color film. I decided
on 35mm infra red film, knowing that the film would render the view
in an unexpected and subtle way. Because infra red film records
wave-lengths of light that are not visible to the human eye, it is
literally extra sensory. The infra red effect is particularly strong
wherever there is photosynthesis going on, such as in the
leaves of the deciduous trees behind and above the cabin in the
print, producing a apparitional effect that suggests the world of
dreams, ghosts, and time past. I chose a camera angle that copied
the perspective of Thoreau’s sister Sophia in
her drawing of the
cabin for the first edition of Walden in 1854; that is, an oblique
angle to the front of the house, with the door in shadow and the
west wall in sunlight, and the woodshed and chimney visible at the
rear of the cabin.”
Photo © John
Suiter
Permission to use this image in any form, including electronic, must
be obtained from the photographer.
The image is printed on an
Iris ink jet printer on Somerset Velvet watercolor paper, using
highly stable pigments estimated to remain stable (no shifting or
fading of color values) for 100 years or more under proper display
conditions. This image is on display at the Thoreau Institute at
Walden Woods.
For further information or
to order a print, please contact John Suiter
at
john@poetsonthepeaks.com
or call 617.735.0812.
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