Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9402270167
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by MARIE S. BEAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ Galen Rowell, photographer-adventurer, has put together a how-to book of the highest order. He, with his wife Barbara, took 60 essays that appeared originally in "Outdoor Photography" and produced this book through his own Mountain Light Press. The essays are organized into a single narrative as an adventure story with four parts, each containing 10 to 20 short, easily- readable pieces on aspects of adventure photography as Rowell practices it. They include initial goals, discussions of equipment, logistics, the ethics of photography, travel itself, and realizations (communicating your world view through photography). Photographs were selected to illustrate
concepts rather than to exhibit his best work. (Nevertheless, many are stunning.) They were taken in such locations as Alaska, Antarctica, Bhutan, Canada, the Galapagos Islands, Guatemala, Nepal, Pakistan, Patagonia, Siberia and Tibet. His purpose, as he defines it, is to tell the inner story behind the art of adventure photography.
This is a book for the professional photographer who wants to be published. It is also for the rank amateur who wants to do more than just point and shoot. It is for the activist adventurer who says "I've got to go there!" as well as for the armchair adventurer who would rather read about somebody else's death- defying experience. It is a book for anybody who appreciates the awesome and fragile beauty of planet Earth. This is a rich book, aesthetically satisfying, though-provoking, challenging. You may put it on the coffee table, but you won't be able to let it lie there gathering dust.
\ Marie S. Bean is a retired pastor.
by CNB