Galen Rowell
Galen Rowell
Galen Avery Rowellwas a wilderness photographer and climber. Born in Oakland, California, he became a full-time photographer in 1972...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth23 August 1940
CountryUnited States of America
powerful artist personality
The landscape is like being there with a powerful personality and I'm searching for just the right angles to make that portrait come across as meaningfully as possible.
climbing feelings too-late
We mountaineers always live with the feeling that we came on the scene too late.
ocean land interesting
The most interesting parts of the natural world are the edges, places where ocean meets land, meadow meets forest, timberline touches the heights.
needs want photograph
Theres no question that photographs communicate more instantly and powerfully than words do, but if you want to communicate a complex concept clearly, you need words, too.
writing artist giving
Today, I'm very careful not to mention very specific locations when I write or give captions.
photography thinking landscape
I think landscape photography in general is somewhat undervalued.
photography cities two
Often when I walked alone in the mountains, I tried to make sense out of the two halves of my life. What went on in the city during the week seemed chaotic and unrelated to the events in my mountain world.
photography light differences
When the light is right and everything is working for me, I feel as tense as when making a difficult maneuver high on a mountain. A minute - and sometimes mere seconds - can make the difference between a superb image and a mundane one.
photography book mentor
My interest in photography did not begin with books or mentors, or with any burning desire to see the world through a camera. It evolved from an intense devotion to mountains and wilderness that eventually shaped all the parts of my life and brought them together.
photography light firsts
My first thought is always of light.
activities american-photographer directly involved mean mind natural observer rather
What I mean by photographing as a participant rather than observer is that I'm not only involved directly with some of the activities that I photograph, such as mountain climbing, but even when I'm not I have the philosophy that my mind and body are part of the natural world.
add american-photographer best bit component definitely work
My mountaineering skills are not important to my best photographs, but they do add a component to my work that is definitely a bit different than that of most photographers.
american-photographer climb kept runs using wanting
Wanting to take a light camera with me when I climb or do mountain runs has kept me using exclusively 35 mm.
american-photographer dozen editor editors geographic john landscape looked national pictures promised run trail
I remember when an editor at the National Geographic promised to run about a dozen of my landscape pictures from a story on the John Muir trail as an essay, but when the group of editors got together, someone said that my pictures looked like postcards.