Milestones: Nov. 12, 1990

DIED. Eliot Porter, 88, conservationist whose dramatic color photography brought new legitimacy to that genre; in Santa Fe. As a young man, fearing that his love of photographing birds was unsuitable for a career, Porter earned an M.D. at the Harvard Medical School and taught biochemistry for 10 years. He quit teaching in 1939 to produce such works as The Flow of Wildness, about the Galapagos Islands; The Tree Where Man Was Born, which explored Africa; and Antarctica. His 1972 book Birds of North America is regarded as a classic.