'Powerful messages for the eye and ear'

 

“The reason that I keep writing is that all my most powerfulmessages about the fates of wild places that I care about need to have words aswell as images.” – GalenRowell
Rowell was born in Oakland, CA on this date in1940 and died in August of 2002 after devoting his final 30 years to photographing andwriting about the world’s wild places.   In the process, he won the Ansel Adams Awardfor Conservation Photography and established his own lasting legacy.
He was held in equal high regard forhis writing -- on photography, humanitarian and environmental issues, and mountaineering.  His 18 books included In theThrone Room of the Mountain Gods about the history of mountaineering on theHimalayan mountain K2, and Mountain Light: In Search of the DynamicLandscape, one of the best selling “how-to” photo books of all time.
In addition to his many photo shoots and articles for suchprestigious journals as Life, National Geographic, and OutdoorPhotographer, he also produced myriad stand-alone shots. “Luckily,” he once said, “people tell mehow they have had a particular landscape photograph of mine in their office orbedroom for 15 years and it always speaks to them strongly whenever they seeit.”
 [image error][image error]GalenRowell and the cover photo for one of his books
He said recognizing how film sees the world differently thanthe human eye was one of his "Secrets to success.   Sometimes those differences can make aphotograph more powerful than what you actually observed. It’s remarkable.”