I heard a man on the subway the other day say the world was just falling apart. From a certain perspective it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Where I live, crime and traffic skew an otherwise lovely day. Rents are rising, salaries decreasing, and national politics are utterly and frighteningly bizarre. It’s either unusually hot or unusually cold, and whether climate change or blatant discrimination or impediments to a calm daily life, it’s not a stretch to realize most of these problems are at the hands of we fallible humans.
One-hundred and eighty-some years ago the Transcendentalism movement gave forth a window on humanity that professed belief in the innate goodness of people and their capacity to trust themselves and their potential. This faith in humanity and in unity with the natural world was a commentary and reactive movement to what the Transcendentalists saw as a deficient society, particularly noting crimes against humanity such as the treatment of the Native Americans and the continued existence of slavery
This appeal to one’s individual sense of ‘we can do better’ sought to raise the bar on self and national accountability. And almost 200 years later, it seems we could still enact and embody some of these virtuous philosophies of rectitude to counterbalance the fragility and damaging effects of being less than our best selves.
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Sunset, Walden Woods
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Key to Henry David Thoreau’s Desk, from the collection of the Concord Museum
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Louisa May Alcott’s Desk, Orchard House
Inspiration is linked in some ways with what we need to get from it. If inspiration is a propulsion, it is also an exchange. The exhale of thought reaches the mind and also the heart of the inspired, resulting in a carrying forward of ideas or action reimagined. McCarty’s work achieves this, visual renderings of a time and place, immediate and current, yet suggesting the past. She achieves this in part through her play with long exposures and camera movement, enticing emotional content through abstraction of these literal spaces.
“The Transcendentalists believed in experimentation. Emerson and Thoreau both referred to life as an ‘experiment.’ Thoreau in fact uses the word ‘experiment’ 17 times in Walden. Knowing this, and with my personal aim to always unify form and content, it was crucial for me to develop a method for photographing the birthplace of Transcendentalism that mirrored the philosophy itself. I didn’t want to make photographs ABOUT Transcendentalism, I wanted to see and capture images as a Transcendentalist today,” McCarty shares.
With that in mind, she set four ground rules for the project:
- Photograph simply by traveling on foot and with a film camera
- Photograph deliberately, seeking out specific places in Concord that are referenced in Transcendentalist writings
- Photograph with reverence to the natural world by observing variations in the environment large and small in every season
- Photograph experimentally by incorporating long exposures, camera movement (from photographing while walking), and embrace all mediations of light.
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Walden Pond, Autumn
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Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Grave, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
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Henry David Thoreau’s Writing Desk, from the collection of the Concord Museum
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Window into the Concord School of Philosophy
Walden Pond, Autumn
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Grave, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
“At first I just spent time there and eventually photographed their tombstones. But on my last trip I had the impulse to photograph the ground in front of Emerson’s tombstone. I made both a long exposure to see what an overexposed image would look like and then a “standard,” timed and light balanced exposure. And on the “standard” exposure I received the image [that made it into my book]. It looks like a double exposure, with half of the image in focus depicting the ground at the gravesite and the other half of the image depicts streaks of light and foliage emanating from the ground. Neither exposure I made on that day was a double, but that is the picture I received. It is a more fitting depiction of Emerson’s grave than any of the photos I made there, but I can’t explain how it happened.”
Progressive or radical thinking in any era is both reactionary and reflective, and in the case of the Transcendentalists of New England, its manifestation relied on both solitary consideration of the physical world and humans’ space in it, as well as writings, and regular discussions with each other to find meaning in observations and in turn shape beliefs. As McCarty shares, this group was interested in both their own relationship to nature, and also how they collectively affected each other and their surroundings. We tend to think of the camera as a literal tool, but for many it is a medium of abstraction, and McCarty utilizes photography well to create imagery steeped in history but presenting current considerations on culture and community.
Lantern, Concord Museum
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Library, From The Collection Of The Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association At The Concord Museum
Emerson spoke of finding one’s own path, leaving a trail. And from there, those curious will notice, repeat the footfalls of those before, moving into different directions, exploring thought and reasons, watching autumn light move through leaf-shedding trees, finding meaning, eschewing reasons, like those before, and those to come.
Window Inscription By Nathaniel & Sophia Hawthorne, The Old Manse