Galen Rowell: A Retrospective
*Starred Review*  Photographer Rowell's athleticism enabled him to reach nearly inaccessible yet perfect vantage points for viewing magnificent vistas. He loved the palettes of sunrises and sunsets, rainbows, the northern lights--any form of concentrated heavenly light--and was particularly inspired by Tibet. "Sometimes film and human imagination work together to produce . . . images that are more powerful than reality," Rowell once observed, and, indeed, the nearly 200 images reproduced here capture sights far beyond the ordinary. This stunning retrospective celebrates Rowell's dynamic life and mourns his accidental death in 2002. Born in 1940 in California, Rowell was a world explorer, a humanist, and a tireless preservationist who hoped to "protect wild places by revealing their beauty." Friends and colleagues testify to Rowell's spirit and accomplishments, from Tom Brokaw, who describes Rowell's photographs as "great, soaring symphonies," to fellow nature photographer Frans Lanting, who points out parallels between Rowell's sublime photographs and the luminous paintings of the landscape painter Frederic Church, dubbing Rowell a "modern transcendentalist." Rowell awoke us to the majesty of our planet and the need to cherish it.Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved