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Green Reflections in Stream, Moqui Creek, Glen Canyon, Utah

Eliot Porter
Green Reflections in Stream, Moqui Creek, Glen Canyon, Utah
September 2, 1962
Dye transfer print
10 ½ x 8 ¼ inches
Gift of the Eliot Porter Estate, 1993
1993.3.28
© 1990 Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

In his photographs of Glen Canyon, Eliot Porter immerses himself in the eerie beauty of the place. With the steep canyon walls rising around him and the river rushing in between, photographing there must have been a challenge. Instead of being hampered by the restrictions of the site, Porter turned his attention to the rich colors and textures of the rock faces and the shimmering mirages reflected in the water. Unlike the waterfall in the previous image, in this picture Porter almost lets go of representation and relies on the expressive power of color and form to communicate his experience. By the time The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado was published in 1963, Glen Canyon was submerged beneath a vast recreational lake. The book, which Porter dedicated to his children, was an elegy to an extraordinary landscape and was used by the Sierra Club as a cautionary tale and a call to action.