E.7. Porter
THE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORIES
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS

10 El Zaguan
Santa Fe, N. M.

December 25, 1939

Dear Alfred Stieglitz:

Merry Christmas to you and Georgia O'Keeffe.
It is snowing today finally and so it is very much like
Christmas here.

Santa Fe is a hard place to get used to as
far as making photographs goes. I have been around a
little and taken some pictures but I have been occupied
mostly building a darkroom and printing the negatives I
made last summer. I think of things around here still
in terms of Maine which doesn't work out very well. It
is like the surprise one feels on eating chile con carne
for the first time when something that tasts like a
New England stew is expected. This is a country you
must live in for a while to understand it and get the
feeling of it but I like it and find it exciting perhaps
because I don't understand it. My feeling about Maine
is quite different. It excites me too, not because
it is mysterious and unknown, but because I know it and
love it so much.

We met Cady Wells the other day. He spoke
of you and O'Keeffe. He knows Henwar Rodakiewicz well
and wants me to meet him next time he comes to Santa Fe.
Cady has gone to California for Christmasand when he
returns he is going to take us around the country to
the places he is most fond of. He was very curious to
hear what my reaction to this new environment was. I
really couldn't give him much satisfaction because I
dont know myself.

In a few days I am going to send you some
of my last summer pictures. Will you be so good as to
tell me what you think of them. Sometimes I think they
are bad and sometimes I think they are better than any
before. Some of them are surely bad. I need some
criticism to get me staightened out. A new gallery has
just opened in Tucson to be devoted entirely to photo-
graphy. It is called the Sternberg-Davis Gallery. They
had Adams pictures for their opening show. They asked
me to send them some of mine for a possible show in
February. I sent some but they rejected them because
they were too much like Adams, so they said but they may
have thought they were not good enough. Perhaps I am
going down hill and I would like to know it as soon as
possible or be reassured. One can get in an awful tangle
about things like this. Probably I should just keep on

5
After.........days, return to

Eliot Porter
10 El Zaguan

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO.

Mr. Alfred Stieglitz
An American Place
509 Madison Ave.
New York, N. Y.

10 El Zaguan
Santa Fe, N. M.

March 12, 1940

Dear Mr. Stieglitz:

I have been meaning to write to you for a long time. I wish I could have seen the O'Keeffe show. It must have been magnificent judging from all the reports I have received of it. McAlpin was full of praise for it. I was terribly sorry to hear that Georgia O'Keeffe was sick in bed during the show and I certainly hope that she is up and about again by now.

If McAlpin still wants that picture of course he can have it. I don't feel like selling it to him, let him take it. I think that one should give away pictures to people who appreciate them.

I have been making much better pictures since first writing to you. It is too bad that I did not wait till now to send you some. But I will be in New York in June and bring some around for your criticism. The enclosed notice includes what I consider some of my best work.

Please give my best regards to Georgia O'Keeffe and for yourself please accept my wishes for your good health made in all sincerity.

1077 Sheridan Rd.
Hubbard Woods, Ill.

September 22

Dear Alfred Stieglitz:

Last week I was in New York. I wanted to see you but unfortunately for me you were still at Lake George. I should have known, however, that you would still be there. I heard from Newhall that you have been feeling much better this summer. That is good news.

I hope you will not mind my having taken the liberty of giving your name as a reference in an application for a Guggenheim Fellowship. Since you will in due time receive a statement of my project there is no need of my going into it here. All I shall say is that it is to take bird pictures. When I was in New York I had with me some color pictures of birds which I wanted to show you. I have the impression that you care very little for color photography. I feel that way any way. These pictures are an experiment in making color records of birds by photographic means similar to what Audubon did by painting.

Will you let me know when you have decided what photographs you plan to use so that I can relieve you of the burden of the others. I will have Budworth send on to me all you do not wish to keep.

At present I am in Washington visiting my sister. Tomorrow I leave for Chicago and then the Southwest where I shall stay for a month. This winter we will be at the address given at the top of the page.

Please give my greetings to Georgia O'Keeffe and my best for yourself.

Eliot Porter

January 8, 1941

Dear Mr. Stieglitz:

Somebody asked me the other day what I did with all my pictures. I had to answer that I did nothing with them; that I put them away and took more and tried to make the new ones better. This is a problem that never used to worry me much. But now with the world so unsettled, with drastic changes so imminent and with the old order fading out it is a question that deserves some consideration. Of course if any activity is questioned that way a justification in the last analysis may not be readily discoverable - at least not in simple terms. Why is it worth while doing something is often a difficult question in the best of times. Today it may be confounding. A depressed person's solution of the conflict might be suicide. However seriously I may take it I am not depressed but I do think that if this country gets into war, and maybe if it doesn't, photography of the kind that I want to do will not be a very significant occupation.

A more specific problem that has been bothering me is one within the realm of photography. It was brought to my attention by an article on Paul Strand's portfolio of Mexican pictures that has recently been published. The problem is simply, when do you know when you have made the best possible print from a negative. I suspect the answer is never. But then the question is when to stop trying to make a better print. The number of combinations and permutations in the process are vast. I often ask myself, 'Is this negative worth a lot of effort?' Unless it is deffinately rotten I usually don't know.

As a result, I believe, of the present state of flux of the world I have come to value possessions much less than I used to. I would like to give away my best photographs - not to a friend who would kick them around and keep them like an old opera program for sentiment's sake, nor to a person whose whim was taken by them and who in a year would relegate them to the guest room then to the attic and finally to the ash barrel - but to somebody or some place where they will be valued and taken care of. My ego demands that, otherwise I would rather destroy them. Do you think my ego demands too much and that I had much better regard my work as more ephemeral?

Could you sometime let me know if you are still considering showing some of my pictures this year?

My best regards to Georgia.

March 31, 1941

Dear Mr. Stieglitz:

It was very kind of you and
Georgia O'Keeffe to telegraph me about the
Guggenheim Fellowship. I hope the work I do
will be a credit to your confidence in me.

I am leaving on Tuesday for
Arizona with several new gadgets for making bird
pictures. One of them is a high speed flash
unit which I made myself and which I hope will
solve some of my problems.

I have been wanting very much to
see you but I will not be able to get East now
until the fall. I would like to show you some
of the color prints I have made of birds and also
some of the photographs I took last fall in the
West. I could send them but I think you are burdene
with enough of my work. If you want to get rid of it
send it back here. Of course I will pay ~~the~~
packing costs, etc.

Aline and Jonathan are going
East in April and will be in New York towards the
end of the month. I want her to go to see you.
She is going to have a baby this summer which is
the chief reason we are not going East then.

I hear from Walter Auerbach that
the U. S. Camera gang headed by Steichen are
sinking to new lows in photography. The world is
in a photographic as well as a political and social
depression. I suppose I ought to worry more about
it but I haven't got time except to feel disgusted
when I see examples of what the publishers think
are good photographs. Photo Technique started off
being a promising technical journal but has recently
gone semi-popular publishing a lot of commercial
junk. For most people money is more important than
quality which has led to a warping of judgement
into a money groove. But there is another groove
which is propaganda. Roy Stricker of the Farm
Security Administration believes that the only valid
justification of photography is to be found in its
propaganda value. Why is there so much demand for
an ulterior motive?

May 31, 1941

Mr. Alfred Stieglitz
An American Place
509 Madison Ave.
New York City

Dear Mr. Stieglitz:

This is to introduce Faurest
Davis a Tucson photographer who very kindly
allowed me to use his dark room while I
was photographing birds in Arizona.

Mr. Davis is a very serious
worker. If you feel up to it I know he
would very much enjoy seeing some of your
prints.

So far I have lost about ten
pounds on this project due to lack of sleep,
undernurishment and worry, but I have some
good pictures. Aline wrote me about her
meeting with you and Adams. She had a very
entertaining time. Although she had never
seen Adams before she recognized him imme-
diately from your and Georgia's descriptions
the way he was jumping around.

I am glad I have had so much work
to do; it keeps my mind off the terrible things
that are happening in the world.