The Last Day at Walden

On July 4th, 1845 the writer Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden Pond to study nature and society from the perspective of simplicity.

He left Walden Pond September 6th, 1877.

These photographs were taken on September 5th, 2003, surveying Walden Pond on the same day in the annual circle as on Thoreau's last full day at Walden.

Each photograph was exposed over a complete walk along the shore of the lake. Starting with the first light of the day, each walk began every 8° of the sun's elevation.

........Like the rest of our waters, when much agitated, in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves may reflect the sky at the right angle, or because there is more light mixed with it, it at a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; and such time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and indescribable blue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the sky itself, altering with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last but muddy in comparison. ........................Henry David Thoreau in Walden