by Carol
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| I love to take landscapes of unique places |
I have said many times that I love photography because it prolongs the enjoyment of the beautiful moments of my life. But I also love photography because it lets me experience places in this world that I will never see. Yesterday I found myself an hour early for a meeting, so I stopped in at the local library and poked around the arts and photography sections. In preparation for an up-coming destination workshop my teacher had suggested purchasing a Galen Rowell filter. ( a graduated reverse neutral density filter, in case you're interested) So I decided to find out who Galen Rowell was.
What a perfect hour ensued - an hour to warm the heart of any self-respecting landscape photographer! Galen was a very prolific "adventure photographer." He was a handsome, yet shy and appreciative hiker who traveled to the ends of the earth in pursuit of beauty. His stunning images drew in the likes of Tom Brokaw and the Dalai Lama as fans and eventually friends. He experienced the world as most of us will never get to see it. But he showed it to us - in books and galleries and magazines like National Geographic. Through mountaineering and exploration treks, he photographed the scenery, but he also photographed himself and his friends in frighteningly precarious positions that demonstrate how dedicated he was to having the full experience of a place and to making the perfect image of it.
Galen shot exotic cultures, unique landscapes and endangered animals, always with "visionary light and color." He climbed the peaks at Yosemite and the Himalayas. He boarded ice breaker ships to document the ice flow at sunrise, and stayed in monasteries in Tibet. He slept in the deserts to capture awakening prairie dogs, and dove deep into the sea.
Sadly and ironically, after all of these experiences, he and his wife Barbara Cushman Rowell, a naturalist in her own right, lost their dynamic lives when an hour flight in a small plane hopping them home to California crashed into the sea in 2002. They were only 64 years old, but what a legacy they left us! I am hoping that writing about him here will encourage you to look at his portfolio - it's really not to be missed.
"Rowell was someone who both traveled light, and traveled with the light. His faith in the revelatory powers of light as it appears on film coincided with a deep conviction in the power of images to reflect the aspirations of the human spirit." (Andy Grundberg from Galen Rowell, Light Traveler) (He went) "to the last great, wild places in the world to be absorbed by their grace and grandeur." (He created) photographs "as timeless, as stunning and as powerful as nature itself." ( Tom Brokaw)
Originally I had 3 of Rowell's images posted here, with attribution, and a link to more. After reading the copyright policies on his work, I have decided not to post them. But please, celebrate Earth Day by taking a look yourself .......
