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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

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Galen Rowell
Age: 61 †
Born: 1940
Born: August 23
Died: 2002
Died: August 11
Mountaineer
Photographer
Rock Climber
Oakland
California
Galen Avery Rowell
Feel
Photography
Feels
Failing
Like
Emotion
Personal
Visions
Vision
Fails
Strong
Photographs
Doesn
Communicate
Best
Photograph

More quotes by Galen Rowell

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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.
Galen Rowell
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I almost never set out to photograph a landscape, nor do I think of my camera as a means of recording a mountain or an animal unless I absolutely need a 'record shot'. My first thought is always of light.
Galen Rowell
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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
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A lot of people think that when you have grand scenery, such as you have in Yosemite, that photography must be easy.
Galen Rowell
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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
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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
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I began taking pictures in the natural world to be able to show people what I was experiencing when I climbed and explored in Yosemite in the High Sierra.
Galen Rowell
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The most interesting parts of the natural world are the edges, places where ocean meets land, meadow meets forest, timberline touches the heights.
Galen Rowell
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When the magic hour arrives, my thoughts center on light rather than on the landscape. I search for perfect light, then hunt for something earthbound to match with it.
Galen Rowell
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I think that cognitive scientists would support the view that our visual system does not directly represent what is out there in the world and that our brain constructs a lot of the imagery that we believe we are seeing.
Galen Rowell
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My advice for climbers or photographers is to really tune into your own passions and not just what other people are doing or aren't doing. Figure out what works for you, what turns you on, what gives you the greatest amount of energy and feeling of satisfaction.
Galen Rowell
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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.
Galen Rowell
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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
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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.
Galen Rowell
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We mountaineers always live with the feeling that we came on the scene too late.
Galen Rowell
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When I go to the mountains, I intuitively know my place in the world much better through these experiences. The more intense they are, the better I know myself, and the more I am able to challenge myself.
Galen Rowell