Homer purchased his first camera in the early 1880s. From the 1890s, he and his brother Charles both took photographs during fishing excursions to Florida and the Adirondacks. This photograph was likely taken during their trip to Florida in 1904. Despite his evident interest in photography, the artist was silent about the medium; he provided no commentary on whether it influenced his art or whether he viewed his own photographs as fine art or as personal snapshots. 

This photograph prompts questions of institutional history. In May 1998 the Clark began to build a collection of photography that dates from the invention of the medium in 1839 to the early twentieth century. River Scene, Florida not only adds a new medium to the Homer collection—one that has as yet been little researched—but it adds a tropical subject that was previously unrepresented in the collection.