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(August 23, 1940 - August 11, 2002)
Born in 1940 in Oakland and raised in Berkeley,
California, Galen was introduced to wilderness
before he could walk. He began climbing
mountains at the age of ten on Sierra Club
outings, and at sixteen made his first roped
climbs in Yosemite Valley. Over the next
fifteen years he logged more than a
hundred first ascents of new routes there
and in the High Sierra backcountry.
Taking photographs began as a way to share
his high and wild world with friends and family.
In 1972 he became a full-time photographer
after selling his small automotive business. Less
than a year later he did his first major
magazine assignment - a cover story for
National Geographic.
Galen pioneered a special brand of
participatory wilderness photography in
which the photographer transcends being an
observer with a camera to become an
active participant in the image being
photographed. His emotional connection to
his subject matter came across clearly in his
early mountain climbing photographs that
first drew public recognition, but his
landscape imagery, often made on the
same adventures, has proven even more
evocative because of the visual power he
created from what he described as "a
continuing pursuit in which the art becomes
the adventure, and vice-versa." In 1984 he
received the Ansel Adams Award for his
contributions to the art of wilderness
photography. In 1992 Galen received a
National Science Foundation Artists and
Writers Grant to photograph Antarctica.
Note: Galen Rowell and his wife, Barbara,
were killed in a plane crash near the Bishop
airport on August 11, 2002, on their way
home from a photo workshop class in Alaska.
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