If he hadn’t begun his career as a scientist, Eliot Porter may not have been the groundbreaking fine-art color photographer that we know him as today. In the mid-1920s, Eliot studied chemical engineering, earning him a Bachelor of Science from Harvard University in 1928 and, ultimately, a Doctorate of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1929. For the next decade, Eliot taught at Harvard Medical School and continued his research. At the same time, Eliot acquired a Leica camera and began exploring 35mm black-and-white photography. Upon his exposure to Ansel Adams’s large format work and a growing connection with Alfred Stieglitz, Eliot transitioned to working with a Linhof camera. Stieglitz also became an early supporter of Eliot’s work, offering him a solo exhibition in 1939 at his gallery, An American Place. Stieglitz complimented Eliot on the show in a letter written at its conclusion, saying, “I must thank you for having given me the opportunity to live with your spirit in the form of those photographs that for three weeks were on our walls. Some of your photographs are the first I have ever seen which made me feel ‘there is my own spirit’ — quite an unbelievable experience.” This exhibition was a crucial turning point, after which Eliot chose to pursue photography full-time and resigned from his teaching position. Eliot’s background in chemical engineering and the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship uniquely equipped him to handle a process that other photographers of the time would not have considered a viable option. This was due to the fact that the dye-transfer process involves applying three separate colors — cyan, magenta, and yellow — by hand to one emulsion layer and employing matrices with pins to ensure an exact register. While it took Eliot years to gain confidence in the technique, it distinguished him as an innovative and important photographer. In particular, his work drew the admiration of David Brower, founder of The Sierra Club. In 1962 the organization published Eliot’s first monograph, In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World. The text paired Eliot’s photographs with passages written by Henry David Thoreau, a decision that differentiated it from other photo books and communicated a concern for environmental education.