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A walk in the woods with Eliot Porter
Dec 29, 2025
As the Carter’s Digital Content Strategist, my day-to-day job is managing the Museum’s website and all of its thousands of pages of content. Because I spend so much time with cartermuseum.org, I’ve become intimately acquainted with the Carter’s collection online, and I’ve found some real treasures!
A few months ago, I was delighted to discover that, among our thousands of photographs by photographer Eliot Porter, we have a series of photos of birds that he took in 1963 at Miami Whitewater Forest, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Having grown up in Cincinnati, I’m quite familiar with Miami Whitewater Forest. While living in Cincinnati, I don’t remember ever paying too much attention to the flora and fauna around me—it was far too familiar. But now that I live in Fort Worth, I was intrigued. I began to wonder what Mr. Porter saw that I missed.
Eliot Porter's birds at Miami Whitewater Forest
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Eliot Porter
Hooded Warblers, Miami Whitewater Forest, Hamilton County, Ohio, June 11, 1963, 1963Dye imbibition print
P1990.52.572
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Eliot Porter
Louisiana Waterthrush, Miami Whitewater Forest, Hamilton County, Ohio, June 2, 1963, 1963Dye imbibition print
P1990.52.567
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Eliot Porter
White-eyed Vireo, Miami-Whitewater Forest, Hamilton County, Ohio, June 2, 1963, 1963Dye imbibition print
P1990.52.386
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Eliot Porter
Yellow-breasted Chat, Male, Miami-Whitewater Forest, Hamilton County, Ohio, June 15, 1963, 1963Dye imbibition print
P1990.52.405
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Eliot Porter
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Female, Miami-Whitewater Forest, Hamilton County, Ohio, June 8, 1963, 1963Dye imbibition print
P1990.52.635
Mallards swim around a pond just off one of the trails on a chilly autumn day.
So on a recent trip back to visit with family, my dog and I took several lovely but cold hikes in Miami Whitewater Forest and I tried to see beyond the familiar to the beauty and wonder of late autumn in the Midwest.
Although most of the trees were finishing up their annual shed and the sound of layers of leaf litter crunched under our feet as we walked, the forest around us glowed in yellows and oranges. A group of noisy mallards swam around a pond partially covered in duckweed. But those were really the only birds we saw or heard, except for some crows squawking in the distance. Fall migration season was over and most critters were hunkered down in warm burrows or nests.
But the hikes gave me the opportunity to try to imagine what Eliot Porter might have noticed had he been walking with me. Maybe the way the light filtered through the yellow beech leaves. Or the way the stickseed burrs dangled off their stems like gray party baubles. The lone red-oak sapling rising above the leaf-covered forest floor. The patterns of moss and fungi on a fallen log.
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Muted sunlight shines through yellow beech leaves.
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Stickseed burrs hang from their stems like party decorations.
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The leaves of a red-oak sapling.
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Moss and fungi cover a fallen log.
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Late autumn in Miami Whitewater Forest.
It’s incredible the things we can notice when we stop to really look around us. So thanks to Eliot Porter, I was able to appreciate a familiar place on a whole new level.
