Appalachian Wilderness – The Great Smoky Mountains
photographs by Eliot Porter
text by Edward Abbey
Ballantine Books, 1973, 120 pages
SBN 345-25039-7-695

Appalachian Wilderness is composed of approximately equal amounts of text and photos… but it feels like two completely separate books that have been combined for no good reason.

The text covers the history of Appalachia, both its geological history and the more recent – and tumultuous – political history. The photographs feature closeups of wildflowers and wide views of the forest. But, even though the photos are interspersed throughout the text, there is almost no correlation between these two parts. The pictures do not illustrate the text at all: nothing that is mentioned in the text appears in the photos. And the text, other than a couple of passing mentions of the biological diversity of the region, provides no background to the photos.

It's very odd to have to constantly "shift gears" between the story that the text is telling and the completely different story of the photos.

The text is interesting, but writer Edward Abbey has strong opinions on his subject and expresses those opinions frequently, which may annoy some readers. The photographs, however, are a big disappointment.

Each photo is printed full page, and in color, but the colors seem "off" somehow. The greens in particular seem over-saturated to me, but all of the photos seem kind of dull and lifeless. I don't know if it's an issue with Eliot Porter's original photos, or a problem with how the book was printed, or just some bias of my own that I'm not aware of… but I can't help thinking that the photos would look a whole lot better if they had been printed in black & white.

I really can't recommend this book, although anyone who is particularly interested in Porter's work might find it useful.