DREW WILEY
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- Jul 14, 2011
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Believe me, Alan, nobody around here took him seriously as a photographer except in some travel magazine and ski poster sense. He knew that himself. He was sought out for expedition planning advice. And frankly, Outdoor Photographer is basically a stereotypical postcard venue. I recommend studying real mountain light with one's own eyes, and appreciating it for what it really is, not faking it just for commercial effect, like Galen often did, though nowhere near as blatantly as today's Fauxtoshop genre. His success was short lived, and would have been curtailed even if he hadn't prematurely died in a plane crash (neither he nor his second wife were young at the time - I don't know where you got that misimpression). His former gallery in the old bank building in Bishop is now a massage parlor on one floor, and a used outdoor equipment exchange on the other. There was very little momentum to it once outdoor sports stills stock photography passed its heydey, and endless digital equivalents became darn near free. Now you'd make more money panhandling on the street corner.
Galen was a local auto mechanic turned endurance climber and expedition guru, who got a lucky break with Natl Geo, and gradually turned it into a living. I had only a little bit of personal conversation with him, but in person he didn't even pretend to be a serious photographer - all of that was just a superficial marketing persona. He actually seemed embarrassed around skilled photographers. And he didn't just bracket specific shots - he shot wildly, and then tried to sort things out afterwards. It was a game of odds. But that's what Natl Geo itself at the time coached - burn a lot of film, and let them root through it afterwards. He led a full and relatively long life - quite a bit longer than most expedition climbers, but had quite a few speed bumps along the way.
I know quite well how it feels to have a 35mm camera dangling around your neck while clinging with your fingertips onto a loose rock cliff. But I also know how it feels to be hacking your way with an ice axe up a long stretch of steep ice with an 85 lb pack on, including serious 4x5 camera gear, sometimes even 8x10. And long before any of us were born, people like Vittorio Sella hauled far bigger cameras to far more remote places, up to as high as 23,000 feet, and made timeless classic images that way. So it's all relative. But big cameras in remote locations do teach you not to waste film (or precious glass plates back in the day). Bracketing is not an option.
Galen was a local auto mechanic turned endurance climber and expedition guru, who got a lucky break with Natl Geo, and gradually turned it into a living. I had only a little bit of personal conversation with him, but in person he didn't even pretend to be a serious photographer - all of that was just a superficial marketing persona. He actually seemed embarrassed around skilled photographers. And he didn't just bracket specific shots - he shot wildly, and then tried to sort things out afterwards. It was a game of odds. But that's what Natl Geo itself at the time coached - burn a lot of film, and let them root through it afterwards. He led a full and relatively long life - quite a bit longer than most expedition climbers, but had quite a few speed bumps along the way.
I know quite well how it feels to have a 35mm camera dangling around your neck while clinging with your fingertips onto a loose rock cliff. But I also know how it feels to be hacking your way with an ice axe up a long stretch of steep ice with an 85 lb pack on, including serious 4x5 camera gear, sometimes even 8x10. And long before any of us were born, people like Vittorio Sella hauled far bigger cameras to far more remote places, up to as high as 23,000 feet, and made timeless classic images that way. So it's all relative. But big cameras in remote locations do teach you not to waste film (or precious glass plates back in the day). Bracketing is not an option.
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