Today is an important day in photographic history. On this day back in 1966, we earthlings finally got our closeup.
Today in 1966, NASA's Lunar Orbiter took the first photograph of Earth from space. Lunar Orbiter I was the first of five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft which mapped almost all of the moon. They were pointing the cameras down, but then NASA changed the angles of the camera and photographed our planet. The reaction back on earth was electric. Nobody had any idea just how heavenly and small we looked from space. It was an amazing image for what it represented. To paraphrase the mission of Star Trek, now we could boldly see where no man had ever gone before.
I don't remember where I was on this day in 1966. Probably doing laps at swimming team practice.
All those great images from the Apollo missions and from Hubble got their start here in 1966.
Today is also the birthday of the late Galen Rowell, a wilderness photographer and journalist. What Ansel Adams was to black-and-white wilderness art, Galen was to color mountaineering photography.
Galen was born in Oakland, California in 1940. He hiked mountains in the Sierra Nevada by his teens, he graduated from Berkeley High School, and then he studied physics at UC Berkeley. Galen never graduated, though, he loved the mountains too much. He started an automobile shop and ran it until he decided to make a profession out of his obsession. He sold his auto business in 1972 and became a full-time professional photographer.
Galen was a kind of triple threat, a first-rate mountain climber who also took beautiful photos in the wilderness, and who also wrote eloquently about his travels. He worked for some of the big names in photography and publishing, such as National Geographic and Outdoor Photographer.

The book that made Galen Rowell famous in the 1980s was the book I studied before I moved to California, Mountain Light. He presented dozens of photographs from his mountain adventures, along with descriptions of the moment: how he found the opportunity, how he adjusted to the light, and how he made sure the camera caught the magic. The book is part-coffee table book, part-how-to manual, part-advocacy for protecting the wilderness. You can't read his book without feeling he was wise beyond his years.
The wisdom of the book which I recall even now is that photography is about our relationship with light. Light reveals, light responds, light allows. We can't tell light what to do. You have to be sensitive to what light has on its mind, and you have to react quickly to what it bestows. Light moves faster than we do, so you can't run up to a rainbow unless it likes you. Something like that.
I bought and studied Mountain Light back in Nebraska, along with a book of Elliot Porter photographs and something by David Muench. I learned how to appreciate and record the awesome beauty of nature. I organized my hiking trips to visit what they had photographed. But when I decided to move to California in 1990, I had to sell my book collection to finance the move. I don't regret losing those books, they served their purpose.
A famous photo from Mountain Light, the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.
Galen tells a vivid tale of spotting the rainbow and running a mile or half-mile at more than 10,000 feet to get the right angle. His story of that shot, just one of 75 or 80 in the book, is an example of pre-visualization, preparation, and execution. If you believe in reincarnation, Galen's lifetimes in Tibet filled his lungs as he ran down the rainbow.
I never met Galen Rowell or his wife, Barbara. I lived near their business in Emeryville, Mountain Light, but he was a busy man and I wasn't. I visited a few times and enjoyed the large and vivid prints of his famous photos in their gallery. I remember Barbara's Mercedes parked out front. The license plate holder read, "I'd Rather Be Flying A Cessna". Barbara was a licensed pilot who flew Galen around for his adventures and wrote about their flights.
On the 19th of July, 2002, I visited a Safeway in Alameda, California. I would have forgotten that visit like all the others, but there was a black car with the license plate GALEN in the Safeway lot. That car had no connection with Galen Rowell. I would learn later the son of the car owner was named Galen, but I was happy to get the photo nonetheless. Sometimes, when the time is right and the light is generous, a great license plate is my Tibetan rainbow.
Three weeks later, on the 11th of August, Galen and Barbara died in an airplane crash near Bishop. They were passengers riding with a couple of friends. It was a night flight, their pilot-friend didn't have much experience with night landings. They were all killed instantly. The shocked tributes came from everywhere: friends, fellow professionals, and celebrities such as Robert Redford and Tom Brokaw. They were remembered by the Dalai Lama, who worked with the Rowells for the book My Tibet.
Today, Mountain Light continues in Bishop, where Galen and Barbara had moved it in 2001.
To wrap this up, years later I would photograph two other license plates. On the same day in 2004, a plate with GALEN R and a plate with T ROWELL. Try to imagine the odds. They were side-by-side on a roll of film, and consecutive pictures on the contact sheet. That was a great photo day. Not a rainbow landing at a palace in Tibet, but something like that. Maybe a double rainbow.