The Gentle Whisper of Living Things

Prior to writing In The Maine Woods in the mid-nineteenth century, Henry David Thoreau’s travels took him north from Monson to Greenville on what is now an abandoned right-of-way. Along the way he stayed at an inn on the upper reaches of Little Wilson Stream that has long since fallen to ruin. The proximity of Thoreau’s passage is no small matter to photographer/painter Michael Weymouth who built his own Walden Pond replica camp a mere mile and a half from the site of the old inn. Like Thoreau, Weymouth is a naturalist who believes that we are one with the natural world and that many of the answers we seek about our own existence can be found there. Having spent his professional life as a photographer it seemed only fitting that he would record his thoughts through the camera lens, however, he soon realized the limitations of photography when it came to expressing what he was seeing and feeling in the woods. So he began to write. ＂It was an interesting phenomenon.＂ says Weymouth, ＂Poets have long used words to create visual imagery, which of course is what makes for great poetry, however, the introduction of an actual visual image allows the image to be equally poetic, which for me translates into abstraction, and I think all photographers are constantly pushing the boundary between reality and abstraction. Adding words as an adjunct to photography simply expands those boundaries.