Bay Area Wild: A Celebration of the Natural Heritage of the San Francisco Bay Area

by Galen A. Rowell (Photographer), Michael Sewell

The San Francisco Bay Area holds the most extensive system of wild greenbelts in the nation, with more than 200 parks and other protected areas lying within forty miles of the city. With stunning photography and inspiring text, renowned outdoor photographer Galen Rowell has created the ultimate tribute to the area where he was born and raised.
Rowell’s extraordinary photographs make clear why so many have worked so hard to preserve the Bay Area's wildlands, and why this work must continue. Miles of rugged coastline, valleys, bays, islands, mountains, and ocean are captured in stirring images, including a full moon setting through pines on Mount Tamalpais, sunlight illuminating poppies in Tilden Regional Park, and winter storm waves crashing against the rocky San Mateo coast.
Working with Rowell to create this superb collection of images was award-winning photographer Michael Sewell, also a Bay Area native. Sewell has spent years photographing Bay Area wildlife at close range in their natural habitat.
More than 170 spectacular photographs and Rowell's rich descriptions of Bay Area landscapes, as well as interviews with those who were instrumental in preserving them, combine to make Bay Area Wild an unforgettable celebration of these unique national treasures.

Genres: Photography, Nature

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Galen Avery Rowell (August 23, 1940 – August 11, 2002) was a wilderness photographer, adventure photojournalist and mountaineer. Born in Oakland, California, he became a full-time photographer in 1972.

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The photographic images in this book are representative of the enormous talents of Galen Rowell. He had published about eight books and many articles showing his creative work on every continent before passing away in 2002, at age 62, in an airplane crash in which he and his wife Barbara were victims. He wasn't just a traveler with a camera. He was a world class mountain climber whose immense physical stamina enabled him to go anywhere in pursuit of subjects to photograph. Thom Hogan, a great photographer and writer, has written about the years in which he rejuvenated his interest in photography by following Galen around the world on his various assignments. Hogan has a collection of images on the web which show Galen ... "hanging off the only cliff in Botswana", "jumping into glacier fed lakes at 16500 feet", "chasing rainbows", "climbing vertical walls", etc. Galen was a mountain climber before getting into photography, and his melding of the two pursuits became a model for just about all of the adventure photography that followed.

I was hooked on Rowell's photography the first time I looked through his most famous book, "Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape." This book, from the 1980's, was an early example of his ability to sense the best lighting conditions and to convey his vision of them in amazing photographs. His body of work has been featured at his Mountain Light Gallery in Emeryville, later in Bishop, California. He was also a great writer; he spoke eloquently about environmental preservation and freely shared his photographic knowledge. He was a founding contributor of "Outdoor Photographer" magazine. I always went directly to his column first when I received my copies of the magazine.

This book was inspired by the impetus, provided by Barbara, that the San Francisco Bay Area of California was worthy of a body of photographs devoted to its natural areas. It's not that no one realizes the environmentally significant areas of the region. It's just that, as Rowell explains, most of the area's wild areas are divergent from each other, and are scattered around a landscape of cities, towns and wild greenbelts managed by many public agencies (p. 19). However, as the Rowell's realized after viewing the area from the air, there is more unbroken wilderness along the coast than can be seen from flying over the Costa Rican jungle. Rowell, a lifelong Berkeley resident, emphasized that he took treks in the Santa Cruz mountains and wilderness of Contra Costa County which were wilder than trekking in Nepal.

Galen noted the powerful effect of ocean, bay and surrounding preserved areas on the culture of San Francisco, as well as the personal satisfaction the Rowells have always derived from living where they could easily access running, hiking and photographic venues. It became important to them to find a way to build awareness of the scope of the Bay's wild areas, and how they interrelate with each other. The most basic aim of this work of photographic art is to emphasize the need to be continually aware of the threat to protected areas from development.

Michael Sewell, noted especially for his outstanding wildlife photography, collaborated in providing material for the book. In addition to using their extensive photo libraries, Rowell and Sewell took two years to photograph natural areas and wildlife, with no restriction on what type of material each would shoot. The result is a visual treat of pre-digital Ektachromes, Fujichromes and Fuji Velvia photographs documenting a great deal of the hundreds of preserved areas contained in the Forty-mile radius from San Francisco graphically represented in the map on page 18. The photo collection and essay material convey Rowell's desire to visually show how to look for solutions to the stresses impacting our urban lives and our natural spaces (p. 29).

[Melissarose · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's mostly nice photographs. It helped me write my hiking wish list.