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Thread: New Book Discovery

  1. #1

    New Book Discovery

    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.

  2. #2
    Eric Biggerstaff
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Denver, Colorado
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    1,327

    New Book Discovery

    Sounds like a nice find! I will head to my local Denver Safeway and see if they have some!

    Galen Rowell was a great photographer and we lost a great person when he and his wife were killed in a plane crash ( not sure if you knew that).

    Have a great one.

    Eric
    Eric Biggerstaff

    www.ericbiggerstaff.com

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    San Joaquin Valley, California
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    9,599

    New Book Discovery

    I'm off to Safeway!

    Sounds like a terrific find. I thought I'd hit the Mother Lode when I found John Garrett's The Art of Black And White Photography on a remainder table at Borders for $12.95 but it sounds like Safeway has that beat.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Spain
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    154

    New Book Discovery

    First come, first serve (too expensive for me to ship across the Atlantic!):
    ebay Item number: 4590830226

  5. #5

    New Book Discovery

    I just checked ABE BOOKS on the web, and there are a ton of these books available starting at $2.95.

  6. #6

    New Book Discovery

    Rowell was the Robert Redford of photography: talented, famous, but ultimately destructive of the things he claimed to champion. He produced memorable but formulaic images-- usually of the mountains, in alpenglow, on heavily saturated Fujichrome, and with heavy graduated filters. Thus was the Wonder of Wilderness separated from the reality of human experience, a truly destructive polarity. And this is a problem. (I'm glad there are Fords in those pictures; that is most unusual for Rowell.)

    He had little time for black-and-white photography, he scorned big cameras, and he thought the entire darkroom process to be unnecessary. That's pretty dismissive.

    As such he is the prime example of the Baby Boomer Photographer. For others, see Art Wolfe and John Fielder. None of them are fit to carry George Tice's equipment.

  7. #7

    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Montara, California
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    New Book Discovery

    Hi Davis,

    Sounds like you have the beginnings of an essay there--I would love to see the whole thing!

    --Darin

    www.darinboville.com

  8. #8

    New Book Discovery

    I write this post in response to the 11-16-05 post to this thread by one, Mr. Davis Waite. My message is not one to attack Mr. Waite as a person but to attack his ideas and his attitude which is petty and spiteful to the memory of the late Galen Rowell and an affront to the photographer community in general.

    Personally, I had not known of the work of Galen Rowell until I had purchased the book "No Boundaries" which is a a very fine book for advanced as well as beginning photographers of nature or the outdoor scene.

    After reading the post of Mr. Davis Waite, I promised myself that I would wait 24 hours before I posted a response, to give my blood pressure a chance to stabilize. I also wanted to again view my personal copy of the PBS production, "Ansel Adams", on VHS. (I enjoyed dinner with Ansel Adams in Honolulu in 1957). I also wanted to take the book in question and review it in detail and in total, as well as separate out, the specific photo work of Galen Rowell for my personal evaluation.

    Mr. Rowell's work is the majority of the many contributing photographers presented in this book.
    I was not familiar with Galens work until the post of Mr. Waite, but this post prompted me to log on the the "Mountain Light" web site of Galen Rowell and Wife...to review his work. I had not known he was lost in the tragic airplane crash which I believe occurred in South America.

    And no, Mr. Waite, the photographic illustrations of Ford automobiles in this book, although small and well executed are not the work of Galen Rowell. (There is only a few in 175 pages.)

    Mr. Waite's comments and attitude on the work of the late Galen Rowell are symbolic I think, of a certain mind-set of some photographers who do themselves NO favor by adopting this attitude and position.

    The purists elite who speak from some imaginary ivory tower regarding landscape photography believe that they alone carry the torch of the late Ansel Adams. From personal experience and my own common sense I believe they are self-delusional and could not be more wrong. Adams spend many more hours in the darkroom manipulating finished prints from already fixed negatives than he ever spent shooting...as he has confessed.

    So what if Galen Rowell as seen by Mr. Waite...(Used) "heavily saturated Fujichrome, and with heavily graduated filters". Rowell is also seen by Mr. Waite as, "separated from the reality of human experience, a truly destructive polarity". SEPARATED FROM WHAT...commercial success or an assignment from National Geographic in which he made hero of the environment!
    What artistic psycho-babble, and artistic BS.

    So what if Galen Rowell had little time for large format (Ever pack for a mountain climb) or darkroom processing. Does this make him any less a photographer! I think not! "Pretty dismissive"? On the contrary Mr. Waite, I think it is you who are so carelessly dismissive.

    For my many friends and colleagues who are professionals, as am I, and who really dare abou the direction photography is taking, your attacks and hollier-than-thou attitude is pretty self-serving and speaks much more about you Mr. Waite, than it does about the late Galen Rowell.

    Photographers are story tellers. Some like you Mr. Waite are more concerned with the grammar of the story telling...rather than the last chapter of the book or a fine punch-line to a long joke.
    For the rest of us in photography, the proof is in the final print. The end of the process, the completion. The finished product that tests rapport with the viewer or audience. You are hung up on the 'process', or the 'purity of the process', like equipment, cameras, film, et.al.

    Today many shoot images which are boring nonsense and are called art (like Tyce) and unable to clearly convey what the photographer was trying to "say"...often, because the photographer didn't have anything to say at all, or the photographers thinking was "FUZZY"...like the great majority of present day landscape photography in LF B&W...which is so incredibly boring! It is the "Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome" with many viewers simply not able to summon the courage to simply view a photograph and honestly say.....I DON'T GET IT!

    You're part of the 'Emperor's' cheer leader's Mr. Waite. Clothes or not, ...you will still cheer on.

    With respect,

    Richard Boulware - Denver

  9. #9

    Join Date
    Apr 2004
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    New Book Discovery

    I'm back.

    Davis Waite As such he is the prime example of the Baby Boomer Photographer.

    Mr. Waite paints with a wide brush, or more likely with a broom from a bucket. From what generation does he speak? I look forward to his specific justification of his overwhelming damnation of an entire generation. Oh, and perhaps he would do us the favor of defining the Baby Boomer so that whomever is reading this far can understand if he is being spoken of.

  10. #10
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Jul 1998
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    New Book Discovery

    Baby Boomer = anyone born between 1946 - 1964 - which I would guess is about 85 - 90% of this list?

    (where's that "how old are you" thread?)
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

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