BIography
Eliot Porter was born in Winnetka, Illinois and was given his first camera in 1911. He immediately challenged himself to photograph birds. He taught himself how to take photos and make his own black and white images. His initial career was to be a biochemical researcher at Harvard, but he couldn't deny his love for photography and soon was photographing all over New England. In 1938, he was offered to exhibit his black and white photography , which jump started his career as a well-known artist. Showing his art convinced Porter to quit his medical career for good and focus more on his photography. Porter became the first established photographer to commit to exploring the color and diversity of the natural world. And in 1962, he gained a major boost when the Sierra Club published "In Wilderness Is The Preservation of The World". The success of this book led Porter on a lifelong path of creating similar photographs showing the ecological variety of significant places in the world. He published about twenty-five books until he died in 1990.
Water Lilies, Silver Lake, Madison, New Hampshire, June 25, 1953. This photo of the Lilies was taken as an installment of the book "In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World". The book was full of images of discrete woodland areas. He matched these photos with quotes from the writing of Henry David Thoreau.
Jonathan Porter, Great Spruce Head Island, Maine, 1938. When Porter started photography, he started taking photos of birds, and also his family. These photos portrayed the typical and semi-formal life of a middle-class family.
Gray's Arch, Red River Gorge, Kentucky, April 16, 1968. These images were chosen by the editor of Audubon magazine to be shown to publicize the beauty that would be lost if the proposed dam were put in place.