Some visual details are drawn from other parts of Ellison’s book or come from the artist’s imagination. In this way, W refers to his inspiration for this photograph as an “accident of reading
A refers to his method of photography as “cinematography,” and like a cinematic production his work is dependent on collaboration with a cast and assistants who help develop a painstakingly constructed set.
He used a large-format camera with a telephoto lens to achieve such a high resolution and finely detailed print. This photograph, like most of Wall’s work, has been printed on a transparency and mounted in a steel-framed light box. The large-scale image is illuminated from behind by fluorescent lights, which Wall began using after seeing light-box advertisements in the late 1970s.