Galen Rowell

“I almost never set out to photograph a landscape, nor do I think of my camera as a means of recording a mountain or an animal unless I absolutely need a utility picture.”

“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn't waste either.”

“The landscape is like being there with a powerful personality and I'm searching for just the right expression, the best side, the quickest glimpse of insight.”

“My advice for climbers or photographers is to really tune into your own passions and not just what other people are doing or saying.”

“I began to realize that the camera sees the world differently than the human eye and that sometimes those differences can make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed.”

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.”

“When the light is right and everything is working for you, a photographer's mind slows down, and you are able to see.”

“The best photographers are storytellers.”

“Ever since the 1960s, I have been trying to create a personal standard of excellence, a moral and ethical balance.”

“The authentic is almost never found by conscious search, but by a process of connection to the subject and submission to the moment.”

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it.”

“There's a world of difference between a snapshot and a photograph. A snapshot is a souvenir of a moment. A photograph is a souvenir of a vision.”

“Chasing the light is a photographer's mantra.”

“The magic of photography is that you can capture an instant of a second that could never exist again.”

“The most important thing for a photographer is to have a point of view.”