Eliot Porter

1. Photographer: Eliot Porter. Book Title: Intimate Landscapes. Year Published: 1979

2. First Photo: Plate 35. Second Photo: Plate 42. (The book doesn’t have pages, but each photo has a plate number)

3. The first photo I chose (Upheaval Dome) really stood out to me because I feel like it’s a less common photo subject. I’ve seen wonderful pictures of rocks before, but not this type of rock. The color divides the photo, as does the texture. There are three distinct different types of rock and each is interesting. The first has a triangular shape that draws your eye in and leads you to the next type of rock that has an overall blue-ish green hue and an interesting zig zag texture. Then as you continue up there are more reddish rocks but with a totally different texture, more loose sediments. I feel like I may be biased towards this picture because I’m a geology major. Part of my fascination with it is the rock formations and structures, but I do find it interesting and beautiful from an artistic view too.

Upheaval Dome by Eliot Porter (Intimate Landscapes)

4. The second photo (Frostbitten Apples) is a favorite for me for a bit more of a personal aesthetic. Autumn is my favorite season, I love the colors, the weather, and the seasonal foods. For me this photo gets me thinking about autumn and what I love about it and that makes me happy. I love the yellow and brown tones and the apples and leaves everywhere. When I first looked at it something seemed a little strange to me and looking at it more I realized it’s interesting seeing the tree still with apples on it but no leaves. That’s not something we normally see, so I thought it was an interesting view of an apple tree, something a little different.

Frostbitten Apples by Eliot Porter (Intimate Landscapes)

5. I flipped through a few different books in the library and I considered an old fashioned portraits one, but I really love landscape and nature photography. I was really drawn to Eliot Porter’s work; it seems a little bit different than most I’ve seen. I feel like it’s “normal” like things I see on a daily basis, it’s got a kind of comforting familiar feeling to it and yet a lot of it is stuff I’ve never seen or don’t get to see often.

6. I think Eliot Porter is really good with composition. I noticed this in his pictures of rocks. He worked with the natural shape of the rocks and framed his photo’s to compose a really beautiful shot. He’s also very good with his use of color. Colors were well distributed in his photo’s and he also found colors that went really well together, although the colors weren’t totally in his control, he definitely took advantage of them. He uses texture to his advantage. Nature has tons of interesting textures and he found them and photographed them very interestingly. He also has interesting lighting in his pictures. It’s rather dull, but I think it really fits his work.

7. Composition, lighting, focus, colors and color distribution, subject matter, framing and/or cropping, contrast, brightness, shadows, positive and negative space, quality, and saturation.