The West [Hardcover]

Eliot Porter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997

Drawing extensively on unpublished photographs from Eliot Porter's archive, New York Graphic Society Books has created the quintessential view of Porter's West. The full-color portfolio encompasses the entire region. 85 color illustrations.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 132 pages
• Publisher: Fine Communications (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567311474
• ISBN-13: 978-1567311471
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #753,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty of the Western landscape, panoramic and close-up, August 7, 2003

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The West (Hardcover)

This is a collection of 87 color photographs by Eliot Porter, taken 1951-1984. It's hard to summarize the contents of this collection because there's such an immense variety of images. In general, they are an often breathtaking tribute to the beauty of the western landscape. All but a few are of natural settings untouched by humans, and they represent the region of the U.S. west of the 105th meridian (which runs north and south through Denver). In most, also, there is an intensity of color and sharp contrast betwen light and shadow.

Beyond that, however, similarities pretty much end. Many pictures represent a very wide array of panoramic landscapes -- mountains, deserts, rivers, canyons, badlands, prairie, big sky. Others are closeups of plant life and the textures of surfaces (rock, sand, water). Some of these latter images verge on the abstract. The collection includes a sequence of photographs of the Colorado River's Glen Canyon in Utah in the early 1960s before its flooding to create Lake Powell. For a whole book devoted to Glen Canyon, see Porter's "The Place No One Knew."

The introduction is a general overview of the history of this region that laments the loss of much since the introduction of European settlement and modernization and describes the struggle that has gone on for more than a century between preservationists and developers. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the American West.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book, July 20, 2009

By 

John J. Falkenstine - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The West (Hardcover)

Originally planning to buy a copy from Amazon, I came across a 1st edition at a local bookstore for a small price (used copy). I recommend the few extra bucks for a fresh copy from Amazon. Paper quality (often an issue with photo books) is excellent, enameled paper, print quality is just superb. Five stars for sure. Open it and marvel at the pictures. Porter did a good job with this one.