My New Old Book

 

I got a new old Elliot Porter book in the mail today, "The Place That No One Knew". Elliot Porter was and remains a major influence on my photography. I bought the book of Adirondack photos when I was in college mainly because of my attachment to the Adirondacks but I was taken by Porter's intimate approach which was a contrast to Ansel Adams' primarily grand views of Yosemite and the western landscape. 

The bird photo is a tip of the hat to Porter. I wasn't aware of it at the time I bought the Adirondack book but Porter's early work was photographing birds. He rigged up a 4x5 camera and flash in trees next to nests and fired them remotely, a rather complicated process. He died in 1990 and to my knowledge never used a digital camera the first of which date to 1988. I shot the above photo handheld with an Olympus OMD E-M-5III using a 14-150mm lens. I can only imagine what Elliot would have done with such a camera.

Porter's later work centered on the landscape and he published over a dozen coffee table books, some of which were reprinted in abridged format by the Sierre Club, the most famous being "In Wildness is the Preservation of the World". About 10-15 years ago used copies of his books were relatively cheap on eBay and Amazon so I collected 5-6 of them but his Glen Canyon book was too expensive for my budget at the time. I spotted the one I just bought listed at $90 for the hardcover and except for some discoloration of the dust jacket is in excellent condition. Trade paperbacks of the original (not the smaller Sierra Club editions) seem to be running $125 and up.

I went looking for "The Place That Nobody Knew" because a Facebook friend shared a post about Glen Canyon that referenced "Glen Canyon, Images of a Lost World" by Tad Nichols, a book that I bought in paperback around the time it was published. I have no memory of what I paid for it and there is no price anywhere on my copy but I was shocked to find that they are selling for $500-$1200 on the web. No, my copy isn't for sale. Tad Nichols was making his B&W images at the same time that Elliot Porter was working on his Glen Canyon photos and Elliot appears in one of Tad's photos.

Below is another Chickadee photo in memory of Elliot. Both photos were made yesterday at the feeding station on the Bloomingdale Bog trail. I did a side trip there after dropping off photos for the Adirondack Artist Guild juried show which opens next Friday, March 24th. Like Elliot's later work, they are landscapes, not birds. The show will be up for a month. Check it out if you can. https://www.adirondackartistsguild.com/