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Photographs inspired by Eliot Porter and his work

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member
At the ELEMENTS Magazine we started the new year with a special feature on iconic American photographer Eliot Porter. It would be wonderful to see your photographs inspired by Eliot Porter. Anyone?

Here is what our co-editor, Steven Friedman, wrote in his Editor’s Word:

"I believe Eliot Porter’s role and contribution to landscape photography is at least as important as Ansel Adams, yet we don’t hear about him as often. Eliot was a pioneer in using colour photography in the field which was predominately dominated by black and white imagery at the time. Many landscape photographers were focused on grand sweeping vistas, whereas Porter was known for his intimate, detailed approach to landscape photography. He took close-up vignettes of the landscape, plants, trees and rocks. His work felt personal and intimate, leaving the viewer with a deeper connection to nature. Today many of us take this type of photography for granted but it was a novel approach back then. In fact, you can see Eliot’s influence on landscape photography even 35 years after his passing."

Elements_January_2025_cover.jpg
 

rdeloe

Well-known member
I keep the library's copy of Porter's Intimate Landscapes on near-permanent loan so that I can look at "Foxtail Grass" any time I want.

I was happy to find Porter's work years ago because his focus on the small details in the landscape resonated. I've never been interested in grand vistas. If I visited the Grand Canyon I'd probably come back with pictures I made of some interesting things happening at the edge of the parking lot! Eliot Porter's work made my interests seem more legitimate.

Motivated by the theme of this thread, I flipped through Intimate Landscapes and stopped at "Asters and raspberries. Oak Island, Maine." Asters feature in my photograph too, so there's a small connection.

R. de Loe GFXC4677.jpg
 

bags27

Well-known member
Porter's Intimate Landscapes was, I'm pretty sure, the first photography book I ever bought and it's still on my living room table He was my first inspiration. IIRC, Adams didn't think much of his work, but many of us did!porter.jpg
My homage: Blad 500 c/m 250 SA Portra 400 in Adox C-41
 

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member
I keep the library's copy of Porter's Intimate Landscapes on near-permanent loan so that I can look at "Foxtail Grass" any time I want.

I was happy to find Porter's work years ago because his focus on the small details in the landscape resonated. I've never been interested in grand vistas. If I visited the Grand Canyon I'd probably come back with pictures I made of some interesting things happening at the edge of the parking lot! Eliot Porter's work made my interests seem more legitimate.

Motivated by the theme of this thread, I flipped through Intimate Landscapes and stopped at "Asters and raspberries. Oak Island, Maine." Asters feature in my photograph too, so there's a small connection.

View attachment 218784
Thank you for sharing. Indeed, Porter's Intimate Landscapes is one of the most important photography books ever.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
I am not sure people really appreciate Eliot's contribution to photography. He was a master of color photography--a master a dye transfer especially (an amazing process that would never survive the power of digital. However, his work was subtle. A naturalist photographer in the tradition of our writers Emerson and Thoreau. He would see the extraordinary in the everyday.

 

bags27

Well-known member
I am not sure people really appreciate Eliot's contribution to photography. He was a master of color photography--a master a dye transfer especially (an amazing process that would never survive the power of digital. However, his work was subtle. A naturalist photographer in the tradition of our writers Emerson and Thoreau. He would see the extraordinary in the everyday.

Tremendous photo and thanks so much for the analysis.
 
Eliot Porter and his work are definitely overlooked compared to Ansel Adams. In recent years, fewer of my students have recognized Porter's name, but I'm glad to be able to introduce them to his work.

In 2011, I exhibited my work at a museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and for two weeks, I also gave presentations about our National Parks and the influence art, including photography, has had on shaping our public lands. This led to an invitation from the curator of the Eliot Porter archives at the Amon Carter Museum to have a private viewing of the work. Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict on the day they could fit me in, I was unable to spend time viewing the archives. I did, however, get to see one of Thomas Moran's original Green River pieces.

Here's one of my photographs, inspired by Eliot Porter. It's from a beach along the Colorado River, a short distance downstream of Lava Falls Rapid below Toroweap in the Grand Canyon.


Grand-Canyon-Colorado-River-Boulders-8894-8936.jpg

GFX 100S | GF 45-100mm f/4 | Really Right Stuff TFC-24 | Arca-Swiss p0+Hybrid
 
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Mark Darragh

New member
Eliot Porter was a great influence on Peter Dombrovskis, arguably Australia’s greatest wilderness photographer. Peter died in 1996, but the legacy of his photographs and his contribution to the preservation of wild places is every bit as significant as Porter’s work.

Personally, Eliot Porter’s ethos has been an ongoing influence on my photography, particularly the concept of abstractions or isolations within the landscape.

“The relationships that are all-important for me in nature photography are best illustrated in my close studies. Close is a relative term; it may refer to a spot of lichen or a reflecting pool of sands, or more broadly in a larger connotation to a sheer cliff or a grove of trees. But in either case the photograph is an abstraction of nature – a fragment isolated from a greater implied whole, missed but imagined, a connection which assists in holding the viewer’s attention.” The Color of Wilderness (2001), Eliot Porter





Detail of weathered Eucalyptus stump.

Toho FC 45-X, Rodenstock APO Sironar S 150mm, Fujichrome Provia 4x5




Kelp and Boulders, Takayna/Tarkine coast
Tasmania

Fujifilm GFX 100s
Fujifilm GF 120mm macro
 
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wattsy

Well-known member
To be honest, I've only recently looked at Eliot Porter's photographs but it is a type of landscape work that I appreciate (I am much more familiar with Peter Dombrovskis). For that reason, I don't have any photos directly inspired by Porter (I also tend to photograph with much shorter lenses than I think he used) but here's a few that perhaps share a similar interest in nature (albeit more "local" and not taken in the wilderness as might be more typical of Porter's).

907x CFV II 50c and XCD 21mm/F4



907x CFV II 50c and XCD 45P



907x CFV II 50c and XCD 45P



907x CFV II 50c and XCD 45P
 

f6cvalkyrie

Well-known member
I'm really not familiar with the work of Eliot Porter, but shoot "intimate landscapes" very often, since Belgium is not the right country to shoot wide vistas with rocky coastlines, high snowy mountains or sandy deserts ...
I started shooting a series I called "The skin of the trees" many years ago, and still continue shooting these subjects ... here's the most recent shot in the series ...

 

tsjanik

Well-known member
The first serious photography book I recall seeing was In Wilderness is the Preservation of the World, long before I was aware of Ansel Adams. The idea of 'extraction' from a landscape has long appealed to me. An example of mine, that I can find, is from somewhere in Wyoming: aspens on a hillside.

_IMG8414 copy 2.jpg
 

wattsy

Well-known member
The idea of 'extraction' from a landscape has long appealed to me.
"Extraction" is quite a nice way of thinking about this kind of thing. Being a mostly (moderately) wide-angle user I don't get the same level of abstraction in my landscapes. I might think about using a longer focal length more often because the flattened perspective of a telephoto can be quite appealing. Here's a few more with my usual wide lenses.

907x CFV II 50c and XCD 45P



907x CFV II 50c and XCD 45P



907x CFV II 50c and XCD 45P



907x CFV II 50c and XCD 45P
 

Mark Darragh

New member
I find it interesting that Porter and his contemporary, Minor White both explored the concept of “isolation” or “extraction” extensively in their work. Both photographers where influenced and mentored by Alfred Stieglitz, but I’m not aware of whether or not Porter and White had much correspondence or influence on each others work. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable might care to comment?


When we cannot identify the subject, we forget that the image before us may be a document of some part of the world that we have never seen. Sometimes art and nature meet in such photographs. We call them "abstractions" frequently because they remind us of similar paintings. Actually they are "extractions" or "isolations" from the world of appearances, often literal. This puts a different bearing on the ambiguous or unidentifiable subject in a photograph. Equivalence: The Perennial Trend Minor White, PSA Journal, Vol. 29, No. 7, 1963




Dead Richea leaves and flowers
Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania

Fujifilm GFX 100s
GF 120mm f4



Detail of burnt Eucalyptus trunk

Fujifilm GFX 100s
GF 120mm f4
 
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