Eliot Porter In the realm of nature

This beautiful volume, featuring some 110 images by Porter and an essay by Martineau (Getty Museum), should help fill a gap in libraries' art/photography collections. Porter was a contemporary and colleague of Ansel Adams; both worked for the Sierra Club. Yet far fewer books have been published about Porter, an early proponent of color film who pushed the early capabilities of the medium in his lush, intimate landscapes and bird photography as part of a call for environmental conservation. Porter exhibited a skill similar to that of Adams and the Westons in black-and-white photography, but his color work remained unsurpassed during his productive years. Landscape photographers and painters still learn much by studying Porter's work in books and museums, especially the Amon Carter Museum (Fort Worth, TX). This volume is a concise course in what may be done with a camera in the hands of a master. Included are samples from several out-of-print books, the Getty Collection, and other sources. Porter worked in a time before some of the ethical guidelines (especially for photographing birds) that modern photographers follow were established. That does not diminish what may be learned, criticized, and appreciated here. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. L. L. Scarth independent scholar

A contemporary of Ansel Adams, Porter (1901-1990) took many black and white photographs, but he embraced color when it was still considered too commercial to be artistic. In both formats, Porter's work is notable for its focus on nature's details. In one print, a bird clutches nest-building materials in its beak while clinging with long claws to a ravaged tree. Like Adams, Porter was also meticulous, producing fewer than 10 photos per day, while spending hours setting up the exposure, constructing towers next to trees to capture birds in their nests, or, in the color lab, bringing out the finer tones. As a result, his images are rich and saturated with movement and detail, qualities that this book by Getty curator Martineau (Herb Ritts: L.A. Style) honors by simply getting out of the way. In one plate, the red leaves of an autumn tree emerge from the dark of the forest as if they were an illusion. A brief introduction, white space, short captions, and an emphasis on quality reproduction let the artist's work stand for itself. Arranged thematically, each photograph in this very fine book evolves to the next, so that the reader has a true sense of the artist's preoccupations. 80 color and 30 b&w illus. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.