A new international rate postage stamp featuring the incomparable beauty of Yosemite National Park was unveiled on February 24th in a ceremony in Yosemite Valley. This 84-cent stamp, which is part of the “Scenic American Landscapes” international rate series, features the “Gates of the Valley” (including El Capitan and the Merced River) and was created from an image captured by the late photographer Galen Rowell. This is the third time that Yosemite National Park has been featured on a postage stamp.

Yosemite National Park postmaster Bill Carroll, Yosemite superintendent Mike Tollefson, and Nicole Rowell Ryan and Tony Rowell, children of Galen and Barbara Rowell, unveiled the new stamp in front of the United States Post Office in Yosemite Valley. The event was attended by numerous park visitors, employees, and park and postal employees from the surrounding communities.

“We are honored to be featured on this beautiful stamp,” said Carroll.“The fact that this stamp will be utilized in post offices around the country until the rate changes makes it even more exciting. It is truly a great day and a great honor for Yosemite National Park.”

Tony Rowell and Nicole Rowell Ryan spoke of their father’s love for Yosemite and other wild places. They added that it is a great honor to have their father’s photograph grace a United States postage stamp. Galen and Barbara Rowell died in a plane crash in 2002.

In addition to the cachet envelopes for sale, commemorative pins and t-shirts were sold at the event. The Post Office and the Yosemite Association, the park’s cooperating educational association, will sell items throughout the park.

“Yosemite National Park is an icon throughout the world,” said Tollefson. “The stamp is a beautiful testament to the park and I’m excited about the image being mailed throughout the world. I think visitors sending letters from the park and people receiving letters with the new stamps will be very excited.”

“First Day of Sale” postmarks  and pictorial cancellations are available through the mail.  Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (large enough to accommodate a postcard) and mail it to: Pictorial Postmarks, United States Post Office, Yosemite, CA 95389.

The work and life of late famed climber and nature photographer Galen Rowell is regarded as legendary by some.

His son, Tony Rowell, hopes to follow in his father's footsteps and carry on the family’s torch.

He showed members of the Merced Sierra Club his family’s photographic work Thursday night during the group’s annual banquet at the Branding Iron restaurant.

Everything from majestic images of Mount Everest in Tibet to picturesque views of a twilight midst over the snowclad banks of the Merced River.

“I hope to go back in the next couple of years and get some more photographs,” Rowell said of Tibet.

His family has taken on the task to support Tibetan people with the Rowell Fund For Tibet, which honors the memory of Rowell’s father and stepmother.

Barbara and Galen Rowell were killed in a plane crash in August 2002. The couple was able to communicate the beauty and hardship of Tibetan people through photography and writing.

Tony got a little choked up Thursday speaking about their death, but his voice was filled with pride as he spoke about his father’s adventures and causes.

Like an expedition to document a species of antelope that was close to extinction in Tibet. The project resulted in a 17-page article for National Geographic.

“There used to be a million of those, and now there was only about 75,000,” said Rowell of the antelope his father photographed. “With these photos, they were able to convince the Chinese government to extend the reserve.”

Rowell joined his father on some of these adventures, including a three-week trip working as his assistant in the Arctic Circle.

Roderick Webster, vice chairman of the Merced Sierra Club, said headliners like Rowell always draw out large groups of members to the annual banquet, who can’t attend every monthly meeting.

With chapters throughout the country and 750,000 members, the Sierra Club is America’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization.

“Because we want to protect the things we love and enjoy doing,” Webster said.

This year’s banquet gathered about 70 people, a larger group than last year.

He said having Rowell demonstrate his and his family’s work brought out those members, despite the rainy weather on Thursday night.

“Tony is starting to have a reputation of his own when it comes to nature photography,” Webster said.

Sierra Club East Bay Dinner, Thursday December 2, 2004. Join us for an evening of stunning imagery as photographer Tony Rowell presents a photographic tribute to his father Galen Rowell and his stepmother Barbara Cushman Rowell. During a 20-year career in which he became the world’s preeminent wilderness and remote-region photographer, Galen Rowell pioneered a dimension of nature photography in which the photographer transcends the status of mere observer to become immersed in participation with the subject. He made more than 35 journeys to the mountains of five continents. He authored 18 books, including his world-famous Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape, and was a major contributor to dozens more.

Inspired by his father, Tony Rowell strives to show the beauty of the earth through his own photography. A Berkeley native, Rowell found himself involved in his father’s work from a young age as he accompanied his father to remote wilderness areas in Alaska, Canada, and the American West. Rowell studied at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, and his photos have appeared in his father’s books and in Backpacker and Outdoor Photography. His work is currently on display at the Tioga Pass Resort near Yosemite. Tony will show slides from a 1997 expedition he took with his father to the Arctic Circle, a 2004 trip on the John Muir Trail, and his most recent adventure, a 17-day trip to Tibet with National Geographic Expeditions. He will also show images from his stepmother Barbara Rowell’s book Flying South, the inspiring story of her plane trip of a lifetime–a 25,000 mile, 57-leg journey in her Cessna 206.

This Buddha rock carving greets travelers on the road to Lhasa, Tibet. Photo © Tony Rowell

Son of famed, late nature
photographer journeys to
follow in his father’s footsteps.

Tony Rowell’s eyes glisten with exuberance as he recounts his recent trip to Tibet. Carefully choosing his words, Rowell talks of his encounters with the people of Tibet, their lifestyle and their culture. A boyish grin crosses his face when asked about the countryside.

“It looks just like Bishop,” he says with a smile. “I mean the mountains and the rivers look just like the ones here. It’s so beautiful and so familiar.”

With the familiarity came some clarity for the son of the late world-renowned photographer Galen Rowell. Growing up in the Bay Area, Tony found himself immersed in his father’s work from an early age, traveling with him to wilderness areas in Alaska, Canada and the American West. As a teen, Tony was aware of his father’s deep passion for Tibet. He heard his father’s tales, saw his father’s photographs, and respected his father’s views. Yet, for young Tony, Tibet seemed so distant in so many ways.

Occupied by the Chinese government since the 1950s, Tibet was sealed off from foreign travel until 1980. Working on assignment for National Geographic magazine, Galen Rowell was among the first Americans granted access to Tibet’s mountain provinces. The trip was the beginning of a life-long love affair for Galen. In all, the elder Rowell visited the Himalayas more than 25 times during his lifetime, authored two books and numerous magazine articles about the region, and became an advocate for a free Tibet. Galen’s commitment to Tibet lives on today through The Rowell Fund for Tibet, which provides grants to Tibetans in the language and visual arts who can make significant contributions to society.

Following his father’s death in 2002, Tibet became a homing beacon for Tony Rowell. “It was just something I knew I had to experience,” he says. Armed with his father’s camera for luck, Tony signed on for a 17-day photography trip this past August with National Geographic Expeditions. He soon found himself at the scene of some of his father’s most memorable and famous photographs and expeditions.

Arriving in Bejing, China and then continuing on to Lhasa, Tibet, Tony retraced the route taken by his father on many of his trips through Tibet. “I really felt a connection to my Dad as I recognized the locations where he composed many of his photographs,” Tony says. “The emotion was particularly strong when our group arrived at the Potala Palace.”

The Potala Palace—the 13-story, 1,000-room former residence of Tibet’s now-exiled spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dali Lama—is the subject of what many say is Galen Rowell’s signature photograph. Made in 1981, Galen’s “Rainbow over Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet,” is among his most widely published and recognizable work. Authenticated and signed prints of the photograph are valued at several thousand dollars.

Tony found himself drawn to photographing the Tibetan people—everyone from the Buddhist monks and pilgrims to the shopkeepers and nomadic herdsmen. “Each face has a unique story to tell,” he explains. “I only hope I can do them justice.”

Tony also found himself photographing much of the landscape between Lhasa and Shigatse. “I have high hopes for the film I shot during a lightning storm, but we’ll see,” Tony says. “I also got some amazing sunrises and sunsets.”

In all, Tony shot more than 2,000 slides during his time in Tibet. He hopes to have some of the photographs from his trip available on his web site [gallery] within the next few weeks. The slide selection and editing process can take several weeks and only yield a few truly transcendent images. “I really like the idea that I’m new enough to this process that I can still learn something from almost every slide I make,” Tony says. “I hope to one day be as good as my Dad.”

He pauses as he plays that statement in his mind. It’s obviously one he’s thought about for some time now.

Again, the boyish grin crosses his face. “I know I have some big shoes to fill,” he says, “but I think I’m up for the challenge.”

Sierra Club San Francisco Dinner, Thursday May 20, 2004. At the May San Francisco Dinner, photographer Tony Rowell will give a slide presentation including the stunning photography of his father Galen and his stepmother Barbara Cushman Rowell.

Galen Rowell pioneered a special brand of participatory wilderness photography in which the photographer transcends being an observer with a camera to become an active participant in the image. Galen’s emotional connection to his subject matter came across clearly in the early mountain-climbing photographs that first brought him public recognition, but his landscape imagery, often made on the same adventures, has proven even more evocative because of the visual power he created from what he described as “a continuing pursuit in which the art becomes the adventure, and vice-versa.”

Over 20 years Galen made more than 35 journeys to the mountains of five continents. He authored 18 books, including the best-selling Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape, and was a major contributor to dozens more.

Tony will also show images from Barbara Rowell’s Flying South, the inspiring story of her plane trip of a lifetime–a 25,000-mile, 57-leg journey flying her Cessna 206 through Latin America and exploring the recesses of her soul, discovering unrealized self-confidence, irrepressible resourcefulness, and vast reserves of emotional and physical strength. Her adventurous tale includes landing her plane in the middle of a coup in Panama; narrowly escaping disaster when flight instruments failed over Peru; flying herself to an oral surgeon after a mouth-smashing accident on Chile's Bio Bio River; fighting plane-shredding winds over the Andes; and surviving a life-threatening tropical storm off the coast of Brazil–all while navigating the pervasive and demoralizing chauvinism of the aviation world.

Tony Rowell is a published photographer himself and will show slides of his own work.

Join us for a very special evening in remembrance of these extraordinary artists, Galen and Barbara Rowell.

Yosemite Falls. Photo © Tony Rowell

Mountain Light Gallery is pleased to announce Influences, a special three-photographer guest exhibit. This exhibit will be a tribute to Galen Rowell’s profound influence on the many up-and-coming photographers he worked with over the years.

Influences will run January 1 through March 31, 2004. A public reception is set for Saturday, February 7, 4 to 8 pm at Mountain Light Gallery.

Influences will feature the works of Justin Carder Black, Jerry Dodrill and Tony Rowell. These three photographers all worked closely with and were heavily influenced by Galen Rowell.

Bobcat with prey, Marin County, California. Photo © Tony Rowell

A display of wildlife photography by Tony Rowell will be at the Marin Headlands Visitor Center throughout 2003.

Several of Tony’s photographs are on view including a bobcat jumping for its prey and his rare shot of a wild bobcat with it’s prey in its mouth, a pocket gopher. Also on display are other wildlife photographs including a coyote, a great horned owl and tule elk silhouetted at sunset, as well as landscapes of the bay area including a beautiful nighttime shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Hours for the display are 9:30 to 4:30 Monday through Saturday, call (415) 331-1540 for more information.