Eliot Porter

[Bill_1856]

http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=rlamzk...cZVuva6gf1kMBY

[Doug Howk]

Eliot Porter is one of few photographers working in color that I like. Probably the subtleness of dye transfer. The images on the website do seem more garish than the same I've seen in his books (eg, Iceland images).

[jp]

Thanks. I'm fully convinced if he'd had blurb/shutterfly/self-publish books in his day, he'd be more appreciated. Every single book I've ever seen of his work has some mix of garish colors, bad registrations, etc... like a bad postcard. It's hard to do worse.

To see his photos on the wall as dye transfer prints, makes him look like the greatest nature/color photographer/printer there ever was. He didn't go for the calendar cover photos, but the subject matter tended to be more subtle.

[Drew Wiley]

The early books which made his reputation are among the finest color reproductions
I've even seen published and were very expensive books at the time. The separations were made from the original transparencies and by some are believed
to be superior to his dye transfer prints. I hope you are not confusing these first run
books with the less expensive later editions of the same popular titles, which were vastly inferior. The pages on the early books were individually varnished, though in some cases the varnish has yellowed. You simply do not get that kind of quality in today's self-published books either, at least not in color. Many of the plates were hand-tuned by craftsmen with considerable experience, and it really shows.

[tgtaylor]

Beautiful! Thanks for the post Bill. It makes you want to learn the dye transfer method.

Thomas

[Michael Wynd]

The first book of his that I ever saw (and bought) was "On Walden Pond". It inspired me to get a LF camera,.....and then I found Arizona Highways in a newsagents in Melbourne Australia where I was living. That was the clincher. I did end up buying another 3 of his books, including the one on Antarctica. Fantastic stuff.
Mike

[jp]

Drew, thanks for the explanation; I'll keep an eye out for the earliest versions of books.

I used to have a poster or two as well that were nicely done, for a poster.

In college, looking at his books made me homesick, wishing I was home stomping through the woods instead of studying in the big city. Nothing or nobody else made me homesick. His Maine photography and family island is about 15 miles up the coast from where I grew up and live.

[Michael Graves]

The early books which made his reputation are among the finest color reproductions
I've even seen published ...

Years ago, I had a copy of a book he did on birds. It was amazing. I wish it had not gotten destroyed in a fire. It inspired me to go to an exhibition of his work at Arizona State University back in the day (don't remember which stint at ASU it was...I was a sporadic student), and as Drew says, the dye transfers were so amazing I was dripping drool in my sneakers.

[brian mcweeney]

Every time I go to the Amon Carter Museum, I pass by this large print of him holding his Technika 4x5 camera ...
http://www.cartermuseum.org/collecti...rter/about.php

[Brian Ellis]

Looks like he was an early user of HDR.