Learning to see

Lastingly successful art triggers audience responses that are ready to happen in the culture as a whole. Regardless of how perfectly a photographer's work renders a subject, it is bound to fail unless it strikes that chord that elicits a common emotional and visual response.

It is this very assumption - that seeing is a singular truth - that gets us into trouble. We learn lots of ways to adjust our cameras without giving much attention to how to adjust the way we see.

by Galen Rowell

The success story of adventurer - photographer Galen Rowell and his wife Barbara is doubtlessly one of the most inspiring stories I have ever heard.. Their unexpected deaths two years ago counts surely as a tremendous loss to the world of photography and adventure travel. The perfect marriage of travel and photography they have achieved in their lifetime proves that some dreams are indeed worth pursuing.. even if the risks are real and constant... i'm now more certain than ever that a life worth something at the end of it is not determined by how long we live, but by how we have lived...

Here's the National Geographic report on their death, as well as an eulogy from a fellow photographer..

what a great perspective to ponder upon, both on photography and life, just before my trip to the beautiful country of India! :)