No, not the much missed climber, thinker and photographer Galen Rowell but the less well-known, but just as inspirational Galen Burrell.
In the late 1980s early ’90s Roz Kidman Cox, then editor at BBC Wildlife, ran a number of extraordinary photographs as double page spreads in the magazine – just one per month. I remember Laurie Campbell’s group of young rabbits in Edinburgh, Dr Scott Nielsen’s Carolina ducks, a wide angle picture of a snipe from Finland – and the picture on the cover of Burrell’s book, In Search of Mountain Bluebirds (Graphic Sha, 1987) of 7 bluebirds in the snow. Getting hold of Japanese books wasn’t so easy in those days but I tracked down a copy of this and his other book, When The Snowgeese Are Gone and was enchanted. This was nature photography quite unlike what I was used to. Not only was the subject normally small in the frame – something I was learning about from Finnish photographers – but he was pushing the limits of what was acceptable with Kodachrome, often to create very high key – even over-exposed – images. Rather like Vincent Munier’s work today, this was all about mood. I remember thinking at the time what a novel idea it was to expose for the side of the subject facing the camera even when looking into the light when, naturally, the subject would be a silhouette.
Burrell’s creativity was extraordinary, his freedom from photographic convention inspirational and I think it is a great loss that his work has faded from view. Second hand copies of his books are available but of the man himself (rather than the runner), I can find little trace.
I made this portrait of a singing male white spotted bluethroat on Texel as a tribute to this forgotten master.
I just bought a copy from Amazon.com for $22.00 – looking forward to seeing it!
I believe that there needs to be more nature photography that intends to capture the mood of what it means to be out in nature. As you mention, Munier is a master of this. There are so many facets to nature and experience is certainly one of the most powerful in my mind. It is an impression that more of us should try to capture in our work. Wonderful post.
Clay
I have both Galen Burrell books, purchased in Japan many years ago, and they are indeed timeless. (Speaking of Graphic-sha Publishing and if you are pointing out older classics, the several books they published of the late Shinzo Maeda’s work are wonderful. His landscape photography looks as fresh today as it did back in the 1980′s.)
Kin,
You’re right about Shinzo Maeda’s work. It is really beautiful!
Clay
I’ve been mulling over the idea of what creates mood ever since Niall’s piece appeared.
I think something such as a sense of bleakness can be evoked even in those who have never been to Arctic wastes but for many of us an evocation will be a sharing of things we have also experienced with the vision of the photographer. Selfishly, perhaps, I have used my wide-angle work to capture the impact that a hillside of flowers made…I say ‘selfishly’ because it does not really matter if anyone else feels that. Nice if they do, but when I can look at images, dream… feel the breeze, hear the hum of insects and even smell the flowers as my escape into that private world then I am happy.
I think I would find it very difficult to pin down exactly what it is that evokes ‘mood’ in a general sense. Must we all have experienced a bit of the same first – any ideas, Niall?