Not long ago I made a quick run to my local supplier...SAFEWAY, to get some food, and as I pushed my noisy grocery cart along I came upon a large table full of books. Most were for children but one stuck out and I grabbed it, opened it, and was blown away my the pictures.
The book is about 11X12" and about 175 pages of dramatic, beautiful, exciting color landscape photography. Not your typical boring...Kodak Moment kind of stuff. I immediately started flipping through the pages and was totally captivated. My visual preoccupation was suddenly interrupted when a nice old lady accidentally rammed my cart with hers and I was jolted back into reality...at Safeway. I closed the book and turned it over to find a price. On the back jacket was a sticker that said..."U.S.A>$4.99. YEAH, that's right...FIVE BUCKS! I started digging through the huge tub of books for another copy but had no luck. I thought I would pass my impressions along in case someone might be interested.

The title of the book is: "NO BOUNDARIES: Spirit of Adventure"..* I later noticed that the original price of the book as printed on the book jacket is $34.95. Hell, I would have paid that much for it....it is that good.

There is a lot of really fine photography in it, much by Galen Rowell of Mountain Light. The art direction and picture editing is really superb and the printing quality is excellent...all color.

Some purists, some on this forum, might not feel as I do about the photography because many taboos are broken in the imagery of this book. First, it is exciting. Second....it actually shows some scenics where water is flowing over rocks, and some of the shots actually really do look like water...NOT smoke, flowing in a river bed. Third, there are actually people in some of these shots that give scale to the landscapes...and last but not least...most of the shots do actually use foreground, middle ground, and background to aid the composition. AMAZING!

Finally, there is another element that will turn off many purists in LF photography. There are some Ford Motor Company vehicles, well composed into some of the shots. Not many but some.
Seems only natural to me since FORD actually was a major financial contributor to the production of this very fine book. HEY...what a Ford Explorer occasionally in the middle ground or background of a very fine photograph...between friends, RIGHT?

I'm using this book as a text for some of the students I am mentoring. When ever I show this book to new people, I always ask them for their impression of these 175 pages of dramatic pictures. The answer is always the same. "It (book pictures) makes me want to go there"!

What finer proof of successful landscape photography can there be?

Oh, ...I forgot to mention. In the back there are color thumbnails of every shot, with an index of technical information, like picture location. There is also thumbnails and bios on the photographers with their picture.

Some of my friends are searching ABE BOOKS on the web to get used copies.

Try it...I think you just might like it.

* "NO BOUNDARIES: Spirit of Adventure", Color, 175 pages, 10.5 X 11.5", Northword Press, Minnetonka, Minnesota, ISBN 1-55971-825-0, Printed in Korea by Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd.

Richard Boulware - Denver.