35mm Velvia 50 is back and very expensive!

[Alan Edward Klein]

He was a climber, not a photographer. He told me that he shot zillions of shots in hopes of getting one winner.

For a climber, his photos are pretty good. He did many covers for Outdoor Photographer and had a column with them as well. His and his wife's untimely death in a plane accident was a loss to the photo community.

galen rowell photos - Yahoo Search Results

search.yahoo.com

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, those private plane flights along the eastern Sierra front with their stunning downdrafts can be far more dangerous than most imagine. My father had to fly that direction once a month in a small private plane flown by his boss from a little dirt country airstrip. But they always went clear around the southern end of the Sierra, and never over the top. You needed something like a twin engine Otter to do something like that consistently safely, which could get to higher altitude over any turbulent pancake or turban clouds. Galen even had east front turban clouds in some of his shots. They're quite spectacular, though I don't know if any exact explanation for that unfortunate crash has been assigned or not.

Outdoor Photographer was a fun publication for many, I suppose, but didn't interest me in the least bit. But outdoor stock photographers needed to get their pictures published one way or another, if they were to have steady income. Galen was put on the map, of course, by Natl Geo, which did a good job putting pictures together with stories, but was otherwise all too predictable visually except in rare instances. Now they gotten a bit silly instead, with a certain amount of digital foolishness, and I quite subscribing, as well as due to an especially heavy hand on the articles themselves in an editorial sense. Prior to that he wrote a few article for climbing magazines of a very different sort, in the kinda macabre daredevil jargon of those at the time.

The history of mountaineering does contain photography of the very highest caliber both technically and esthetically for their times, of whom Vittoria Sella and
Bradford Washburn are prime examples. They no doubt carried some cheese on their expeditions, but Velveeta didn't exist yet.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Galen liked 35mm because it was light. He'd get up before dark in camp and run and climb with it to the tip of some mountain where he'd get a shot during magic hour, then run back to base.

I'd still be sleeping.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Many, including myself, have done the same kind of thing with way bigger cameras, though as a teenager all I owned was a little early Pentax H1 35mm. Galen at least tried med format, but claimed it didn't fit his personal style, and it probably didn't. But Sella puts us all to shame, and did pioneering exploration, climbing, and photography in the Alps, Karakorum, Alaska Range, central Africa with a huge plate camera. It's all relative. Today a lot of people complain that anything bigger than a cell phone is a terrible burden to carry. I got out with the 8x10 yesterday, and actually ran into a pro hoping to buy one, asking me advice, planning for a year-long travel project. He mainly has 4X5 Sinar studio experience, so already knows certain basics; but outdoor logistics with even bigger gear and expense adds a whole new layer to the learning curve.

When he wasn't traveling, Galen would run up Marin Ave uphill from here, a very straight steep street which my backpacking sidekick also keeps in shape with. I drove up it yesterday. My deformed feet can't handle hard pavement or sidewalks, especially back downhill. Until I was around my mid-60's, I'd add a five-gallon jerry can of water to my 8x10 pack, giving me a cumulative weight of around 90 lbs, and hike up the highest and steepest hills I can find around here, or on weekends near my mountain property, where that kind of challenge takes on a whole different scale. The nice thing about doing that is that it builds up your knees going uphill, then at the top you dump the water, potentially over yourself on a hot day; and that spares some of the wear and tear on the knees and feet going back downhill. Wish I could still do that, but I can't.

 

[MultiFormat Shooter]

I'm just glad I can still get current-production Velvia 50; I just got roll from Adorama. It's out-of-stock at B&H Photo, which is good, in the sense that people are buying it at the new price.

 

[Trevor Sowers]

I just found some on eBay from Japan but otherwise it's very hard to find Velvia 50! Provia is also very hard to find right now. Here in Canada Velvia 100 is available but alas it is the 50 that I really want.

 

[Roger Cole]

Currently in stock at B&H.