The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado Hardcover – January 1, 1963

Glen Canyon is a 200 mile stretch of the Colorado, full of pristine views, side tributaries, canyons, buttes, bluffs, sheer canyon walls of beauty leading from Utah to the Grand Canyon and the Glen Canyon Dam which was constructed in the 1950's and early sixties closed the dam gates in 1963 to fill Lake Powell, behind the Glen Canyon Dam, with water up to a hundred feet deep all through Glen Canyon... Eliot Porter, a well-known color landscape photographer of the day, was able to get in early and preserve the scenery in photographic images, and he was the very first color landscape photographer in the world so this book published in the mid 1960's is priceless, both from a historical perspective of his color techniques of color dye transfer using three negative plates per image, to the historical view of government's dam mandates, without regard to the destruction of nature or the cutting off of water to the Grand Canyon. This book Eliot Porter was instrumental in having published, and beauty of the images he created, resulted in a huge public uproar in the late 1960's, the 1970's and the 1980's over the public's furor that the dam had destroyed Glen Canyon, had been created without public consult and without public hearings. It took a full 20 years for Lake Powell behind the dam to become full, and birds and wildlife were dying in the Grand Canyon as their habitats needing water were destroyed. This book should be required reading for any Environmental topics course. Eliot Porter's fame grew, world-wide when this book was published. His color techniques were very advanced from any known to photographers of that decade. Very few photographers were using color dye transfer for color landscape photography as Ansel Adams and black and white photographs for landscapes was still the rage of the decade. No one believed color photography would last. When this book was published in the 1960's it sold for $3.95 USD, because the publishers didn't think people would like it. Read it... and be as awed with this photography as I was... it is a historical masterpiece by Eliot Porter and contains an Acknowledgment right after the Forward, by David Brower of the Sierra Club, dated March 14, 1963, Berkeley, California.C. Gribble, student photographer, Napa Valley, California. 2011.

The book is out of print and the used copies expensive, but it's still worth it to get a hold of one for your collection. The photos are all about color and texture...not grand landscape photos. The sky doesn't appear in most of the photos. Makes this book different and quite special. You feel like you're seeing the things you would focus on if you'd been sitting in each of these spots for a while. It's mind-blowing that we drowned these places. So going through the book is bittersweet but worth it.

the book was much smaller than I expected...but I'm still glad I bought it...

Came without jacket but the description said it might. Considering the book is 50 +++ years it is in very good condition, little musty but photos stunning.

I've hiked and traveled this country in recent years. I first traveled through it when a youth (19-1954), awed but not truly understanding what I was seeing. This book, along with Tad Nichols' ""Images of a Lost World" will drive home the point of what has been lost. It can't be recovered, even if the dam were to come down, or at a minimum, be drained, but these two books will make the argument for ending it and starting some sort of resurrection. If you look at these pictures you will understand the imperative.

I had hoped for better phtographs

I've wanted a copy of this book ever since I first saw it the the San Jose, CA public library. It's a beautiful, moving elegy to a lost natural wonder. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning.The seller, the Friends of the Lafayette CA Library, promptly responded to my purchase. The book arrived well-protected and in excellent shape. Well done, gang! Reader, please consider patronizing this organization. You won't be disappointed.

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