The
reason that I keep writing is that all my most powerful messages about the
fates of wild places that I care about need to have words as well as images.”
– Galen Rowell
A wilderness photographer, climber and writer, Rowell was born in California on this date in 1940 and died in 2002 after devoting his final 30 years to photographing and writing about the world’s wild places. In the process, he won the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography and established his own lasting legacy.
He was held in equal high regard for
his writing on photography and on humanitarian and environmental issues and
mountaineering. His remarkable 18 books
included In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods about the history of
mountaineering on the Himalayan mountain K2, and Mountain Light: In Search
of the Dynamic Landscape, one of the best selling “how-to” photo books of
all time. 
In addition to his many photo shoots
and articles for such prestigious journals as Life, National
Geographic, and Outdoor Photographer, he also produced myriad stand-alone
shots. “Luckily,” he once said, “people tell me how they have had a particular
landscape photograph of mine in their office or bedroom for 15 years and it
always speaks to them strongly whenever they see it.”
When asked his secret to
photographic success, he said it was recognizing how film sees the world
differently than the human eye and adjusting his shooting techniques to
fit. “Sometimes those differences can
make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed. It’s remarkable.”
(To see examples of Rowell's work,
visit 'Images of Galen Rowell')
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