There is no question that photography has played a major role in the environmental movement. Galen Rowell More Quotes by Galen Rowell More Quotes From Galen Rowell I like to feel that all my best photographs had strong personal visions and that a photograph that doesn't have a personal vision or doesn't communicate emotion fails. Galen Rowell visionphotographystrong Ever since the 1860s when photographers travelled the American West and brought photographs of scenic wonders back to the people on the East Coast of America we have had a North American tradition of landscape photography used for the environment. Galen Rowell american-westphotographypeople A lot of people think that when you have grand scenery, such as you have in Yosemite, that photography must be easy. Galen Rowell photographypeoplethinking Small, portable digital cameras that exceed the performance of an off-the-shelf Nikon using 35mm slide film are further away from current reality than the proposed NASA manned Mars mission, although I expect both to happen sometime during my lifetime. Galen Rowell nikonmarsreality I think landscape photography in general is somewhat undervalued. Galen Rowell landscapephotographythinking 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. Galen Rowell differenceslightphotography Today, I'm very careful not to mention very specific locations when I write or give captions. Galen Rowell artistwritinggiving We mountaineers always live with the feeling that we came on the scene too late. Galen Rowell climbingfeelingstoo-late If we limit our vision to the real world, we will forever be fighting on the minus side of things, working only too make our photographs equal to what we see out there, but no better. Galen Rowell fightingartistreal Wanting to take a light camera with me when I climb or do mountain runs has kept me using exclusively 35 mm. Galen Rowell climbmemountainlight The combination of pictures and words together can be really effective, and I began to realise in my career that unless I wrote my own words, then my message was diluted. Galen Rowell pictureswordsmy-owntogether I began to realise that film sees the world differently than the human eye, and that sometimes those differences can make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed. Galen Rowell youeyesometimesworld 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. Galen Rowell mountainbodymindworld I'm exchanging molecules every 30 days with the natural world and in a spiritual sense I know I am a part of it and take my photographs from that emotional feeling within me, rather than from an emotional distance as a spectator. Galen Rowell i-ammespiritualworld When we tune in to an especially human way of viewing the landscape powerfully, it resonates with an audience. Galen Rowell humanlandscapeaudienceway 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. Galen Rowell picturessomeonetogetherremember Luckily, many other 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. Galen Rowell seemelandscapepeople 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 wordscarepowerfulwriting These days, most nature photographers are deeply committed to the environmental message. Galen Rowell messagedaysenvironmentalnature
