Blue-Throated Hummingbird (Male)

Currently not on view

Blue-Throated Hummingbird (Male)

1941

Eliot Porter (American, 1901–1990)

Porter’s favored subject was nature, and his observation of it was both detail-oriented and meditative. He often waited patiently, for hours on end, for a bird to settle into the tree on which his camera was focused. He was one of the first photographers to embrace Kodachrome, an early color film developed in the mid-1930s that was extremely fugitive (subject to color change and fading) and difficult to print. This film was slow to expose under natural light conditions, so photographing quickly moving birds required artificial light, in this case a series of strobes synced with Porter’s camera. The flash gives the pictures their otherworldly and almost painterly quality, but Porter amplified this in the darkroom, too, deepening the blue and green hues during the printing process.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Blue-Throated Hummingbird (Male)

Date:

1941

Artist:

Eliot Porter (American, 1901–1990)

Medium:

Chromogenic print

Dimensions:

Image and sheet: 10 3/16 × 8 1/4 inches (25.9 × 20.9 cm) Mount: 19 15/16 × 15 inches (50.7 × 38.1 cm)

Classification:

Photographs

Credit Line:

From the Collection of Dorothy Norman, 1970

Accession Number:

1970-241-1

Geography:

Photograph taken in Illinois, United States, North and Central America

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Currently not on view