Galen Rowell: A Retrospective

A collection of Galen Rowell's photography that spans his lifetime and the globe. Mostly breathtaking landscapes taken from his hikes and climbing adventures. Some portraits of people and animals. Photos are accompanied by essays written by those who Rowell influenced in his life.

I love that Rowell was committed to taking the picture as the eye/camera sees it without any post-shot manipulations. Using filters and film, he was able to beautifully duplicate what the eye so readily perceives. Because he wasn't going to modify the photo after the shot, Rowell had to plan his pictures very carefully over the course of time, watching the light. That said, he was also a master of constant preparation so that he would be ready to take an unforeseen shot. Many of his photographs are taken while suspended from a sheer rock face.

Rowell was committed to his passion. So much so, that he stopped living a secure life in 1960 (being settled, owning his own business) in order to exclusively pursue a dream that had little basis in his reality at the time. Rowell refused to settle as a hobbyist. He was constantly engaged in the discipline of his artistic process whether it be climbing, camping, writing, photographing, so that he would be prepared for anything life threw at him.

His daily pursuit of his passions reminds me of others I know personally. Those who know that time is how we fill it and fill theirs with things that make their spirits thrive. Also, they know that we can't just sit around and wait for life to happen. We have to actively engage in life. Actively discipline ourselves. Actively create and in doing so be artists.

That is difficult to do. I want to be like this. I want to drive from the tip of Baja to the arctic circle on small highways and back roads. I want to see the Northernmost piece of land in Greenland and the Southernmost in Antarctica. But I also want to be able to drive--in my backyard, so to speak--up the 395 and see the heart-breaking beauty that Rowell so perfectly captured.

Mostly I want to live. Wherever I am to find joy in life.

A Conversation

5yrold: When I grow up, I am going to run an animal rescue center.

me [not really paying attention because he talks nonstop]: That's nice, honey.

5yo: Yeah, and when hunters come, I am going to kill them.

me [now paying attention]: What?!

5yo: If they come to hurt the animals, I will stop them. I will kill them.

me: Do you think that's very kind?

5yo: Well, I hate animal suffering.

me: Yeah, but isn't killing humans also causing suffering?

5yo: But, Mom, they're killing animals.

me: So maybe instead of killing hunters, you could do something else.

5yo [honestly at a loss for another alternative to murder]: Like what?

me: Well, maybe you could take the hunters' guns and then have them go to school to learn about how not to kill animals.

5yo [thinking it over]: I could take their guns. . . [face lights up because he's just had a bright idea]. That's what I'm gonna do: I'll take their guns and tell them "hey, you have to stop killing animals. You need to get a house and a wife and a baby."

Apparently, yuppiehood is the solution to animal suffering.

I Make Them Write Write Write

And then I make them read.--Taylor Mali



Which may be the problem with most of today's writers: they are disproportionately write, write, writing to their reading. Possibly this is why Poets and Writers laments that while the number of those who want to write is increasing, the number of those who actually read is going down (for further articles of this ilk go here and here).



I wouldn't think that reading would be something writers wouldn't have time to do. It seems like a no brainer: you want to write so you must love words, you must be engaged in the textual conversations that are ever-present in this (semi)literate society, you must read all the time. Come on, it's like two sides to a coin. You can't write well if you don't read, and read broadly. But apparently, we have a generation(s?) of writers in MFA programs or whatnot whose mantra is "I'll read in the summer when I have time." Hmmmm, three whole months? Wow. And who's to say you'll have time in the summer for reading? Life happens. Further, what are you doing in the off-reading months? Writing? Writing in a vacuum does not produce great works as I can attest from many of the pieces submitted in the fiction writing MFA class I am crashing.



Yet these writers?/kids?/whattheheckdoIcallthem? have no idea. They spend so much time reading each others' shoddy solipsistic works that they have no concept of what real (and good) writing looks like.

Something New Every Day

Well, I learned three new things today.

1. Potato plants can and will grow from eyes cut out of store-bought spuds.

2. What said plants actually look like.

3. Don't pull up the aforementioned plants, thinking they are weeds. You will both be pleasantly surprised at the find and hit with viceral remorse that you've just killed a food-bearing part of your family.

And in other news, the watermelons and serrano chiles in my garden are doing fantastically well (why I felt the need to plant no less than 5 serrano plants is beyond me--I can cook spicy but not that spicy).

We'll Call This a Lesson Learned

I've just returned from an extended weekend at Mammoth. Because airline service isn't provided from San Diego to there yet (but it is coming), the trek must be done via automobile and done through either the snarl that is Riverside/San Bernadino or vortex that is LA. Either way, it is one long-ass car ride.

Or better: road trip. See, I have a secret rule that any car ride that last longer than five hours is actually a secret road trip. And the seven-hour joyride from San Diego to Mammoth easily qualifies.

I hate road trips. It may be the sitting still for so long or the absolutely unchanging and uninspiring scenery through the Adelanto (also known as the city of unlimited possibilities) corridor of hell, but I just can't handle it. The stale air from the airconditioning, the growing numbness in my right leg, the crick in my neck, the same black road over and over and over and over and over. But really, I've said all of this before, so enough of my hatred of being trapped in zooming piece of metal for hours on end.

This trip, I decided to read as much as I possibly could to distract me from my motionless misery. I brought seven books and set the goal of reading at least five of them before I returned to San Diego.

Besides wanting to have dedicated time to read, we journeyed to Mammoth to visit with friends and family and drink much wine while listening to music in an outdoor setting. In other words, this weekend was Mammoth's wine Festival. Wineries from all over California pushed their fermented grape juice as the sound of guitars wended its way through the evergreen trees. The festivities started Friday night with a little pretasting in the Village.

That night I learned an important thing about myself: do not buy "art" while inebriated at high altitude just because it happens to stimulate your mind to make interesting connections. It isn't the "art," it's the altitude. Your mind would make interesting connections at the nearby, overpriced children's store but you aren't going to buy a $75 tee-shirt.

Or maybe you would if you hadn't already bought said "art" and were already experiencing intense buyer's remorse.

I am still upset at myself though the weekend wasn't an entire bust. I did get another piece of art that is indeed just that. It is beautiful, speaks to me even at sea level, and is already up on my wall.

The other one? Ummmm, maybe I can salvage the frame.

*Did I get to my five-book goal? Oh, hells yes.
Books read:
John Berger's King: A Street Story
Novella Carpenter's Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
Steve Dublanica's Waiter Rant
Jesse Ball and Thordis Bjornsdottir's Vera and Linus
B. Traven's The Bridge in the Jungle

Timing is Everything

Last week contained one of those days where I operate on the razor's edge of hysteria. Where I wonder if I'm actually pulling off normal since my nerves are so frayed that the slightest bump is going to cause them all to snap and recoil at extreme velocity into my skull. Part of me welcomes this break because then maybe I'll get a few moments of peace until the people around me figure out that something is wrong. Part of me fears it because maybe I'll end up like Humpty-Dumpty and never be put back together again. I've worked so hard for so long on this me, years really, that I don't know if I want it all in pieces.


Anyway, I digress.

(n)Ever Changing

I kind of like how the moon is a constant amidst the sparkle (and fade--hee) of fireworks but is actually a huge variable force in the natural world (and here I'm talking about cycles not about inconsistencies).

More about my white trash (sorry dad) Fourth later.

For now, enjoy the moon (if not all my qualifiers).