On Aug. 11th, while returning from location in the Bering Sea, the light plane that was transporting Galen Rowell and his wife, Barbara, went down, killing all four on board. The small, privately owned plane crashed just south of the Bishop, Calif., airport. Tom Reid of Bishop was piloting the plane, and the fourth passenger was Carol McAfee, also of Bishop.

Along with the Rowells’ friends and family, the photography world is mourning their loss. Both Rowells were photographers and writers with a keen interest in wilderness and global issues. “His great legacy is the inspiration he gave to a generation of outdoor enthusiasts and promoting a critical awareness of the global environment,” said his longtime friend Robert Holmes, a travel photographer based in California.

Seattle-based nature photographer Art Wolfe credits Galen with redefining the photography profession. “He put causes behind the photos. He championed Tibetan rights before it really was fashionable,” said Wolfe. “Beyond just paying the rent, he saw it as a valuable and powerful medium to connect to a larger group of people.”

Galen’s family helped foster his interest in nature. He began mountain climbing at the age of 10. “Galen was without doubt the most energetic and relentless photographer I have ever known,” said Holmes. “We met as climbers over 25 years ago and both transformed into photographers, often working alongside each other on ‘Day in the Life’ books and similar projects. Galen always remained a climber at heart.”

The Rowells were known for their strength, said their friends. “He and his wife were tough,” said Wolfe. “One year in particular, they showed up at dinner and they both were beat up — they both had facial scars. They had been in a rafting accident, I think, in Patagonia. That’s just part of the whole occupation, of being out there all the time, being on the edge of civilization.”

“He was an amazing athlete, fitter than many men half his age, and this, combined with his intellect, resulted in a formidable powerhouse,” Holmes said of Galen. “Whether it was in the pursuit of an image or an ideal, he would let nothing get in his way.”

In addition to completing more than 40 expeditions on all seven continents and to both poles, Galen produced 18 books of wilderness photography, for which he also wrote the text. In 1984 he received the Ansel Adams Award for his contributions to the art of wilderness photography, and in 1992 he received a National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Grant to photograph Antarctica. Since 1986, he has written a monthly column for Outdoor Photographer magazine.

Barbara was the president of Mountain Light Photography, the agency, gallery and small press the Rowells had built together. Her recently completed first book, “Flying South: A Pilot’s Inner Journey,” documented her adventures as a Cessna T206 pilot. Her photographs have been included in National Geographic, Outside, Plane & Pilot, and in books, calendars and travel publications.

The Rowells, who were married in 1981, had recently relocated their business from the Bay Area to their new home of Bishop in the Eastern Sierra.

Galen is survived by two children from a previous marriage, Nicole Ryan and Edward Anthony Rowell, and two grandsons, Forrest Avery Ryan and Colby Dustin Ryan. Barbara is survived by her mother Lucile Cushman, brother Robert Cushman, and nieces Mariah and Grace Cushman.

A Memorial Fund has been established for Galen Rowell and Barbara Cushman Rowell through the Tides Foundation. This fund will be used to support the philanthropic interests of the Rowells. Donations can be sent to Tides Foundation, P.O. Box 29903, San Francisco, CA 94219-0903. Checks should be made payable to the Tides Foundation, with the memo “In memory of Galen Rowell and Barbara Cushman Rowell.” Contributors should include their address in order to receive a tax-exempt donation letter.

PhotoMedia To Produce World In Focus Event

PhotoMedia magazine has announced it has taken over production of the Northwest Exhibit of Environmental Photography (NWEEP), renamed the event "World in Focus" and expanded on its concept. The mission of the event is to raise environmental and cultural awareness of our world through photography. That purpose is realized via a photo contest which results in a six-week print exhibit of the contest winners and opening reception at Seattle’s Rainier Square building, an awards ceremony and keynote seminar by photographer, Art Wolfe at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall on June 6, and an all-new seminar series at the Seattle Center on June 6-8, 2003.

PhotoMedia will enhance the World in Focus 2003 photo exhibit by opening contest eligibility (beyond the northwest) to residents of the U.S. and Canada, and adding two new categories (Urban Wildlife and Creative/Computer Enhanced) to the previous nature, environment and endangered cultures categories for submissions. Additionally, World in Focus will begin accepting entries on digital media for the first time and will publish select winners in a special insert in the Fall 2003 issue of PhotoMedia.

The awards ceremony will be held on June 6 at Benaroya Hall, with renowned photographer Art Wolfe scheduled as the keynote speaker. Wolfe will debut his latest landscape work from a new self-published coffeetable book, “Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky,” to be released fall 2003.

Also new for World in Focus 2003 will be a seminar series led by some of the top names in nature, environmental and endangered cultures photography. The all-day seminars will take place June 7-8 at the Seattle Center. An adjacent hospitality and reception room, featuring photography and other related organizations, associations, sponsors and vendors, will provide a space for information exchange and networking.

Seattle’s Rainier Square Building will host and sponsor the event’s print exhibit for the third consecutive year, from June 5 through July 20. The opening reception is scheduled for Friday, June 6, from 3:30 to 6 PM. PhotoMedia anticipates a significantly higher volume of contest entries than in previous years, which should enhance the prestige of the winning entries.

A juried photo contest and print exhibit has been the basis for the event since its inception in 1997 as the Art Wolfe Invitational Exhibit. It was originally conceived to draw attention to the work of Northwest photographers (limited to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska and British Columbia) whose work dealt with issues of nature, the environment and endangered cultures. The exhibit later changed its name to the Earth Day Invitational Exhibit before adopting the NWEEP name in 2001.

Over the years, the show has moved from a small Seattle gallery to a more impressive venue on Seattle’s waterfront. Its current venue, the Rainier Square Building in the heart of downtown Seattle, will once again display 92 selected World in Focus prints for six weeks following the event.

Photo contest rules, regulations and an entry form are available in the current Fall 2002 and upcoming Winter 2003 (due out Feb. 3) issues of PhotoMedia and on the World in Focus web site (www.worldinfocus.us). Entries may be submitted as duplicate slides or in digital format on CD-ROM. The entry fee is US$35 for up to three images, and US$15 for each additional image (no limit). An early-bird discounted entry fee of US$30 for up to three images, and US$10 for each additional image is applicable for entries postmarked by Dec. 31, 2002. The deadline for entries is Feb. 28, 2003.

A complete schedule of speakers and programs for the weekend seminar series will be announced in the Winter 2003 issue of PhotoMedia, with more details and registration information to follow in the Spring/Summer 2003 issue (due out May 5). Updates will also be posted on the World in Focus web site in the months ahead. All other inquiries may be directed to 206-364-7068.

This is the first event that PhotoMedia magazine will produce since its highly successful PhotoMedia Expo, which ran from 1993 to 1996 at the Seattle Center (a fifth and final edition of the event was staged in 1997 under different ownership and management). The 1993-96 Expos perennially drew more than 3,000 attendees and included an approximately 100-exhibitor trade show, 28 high-quality workshops and seminars, and exhibits and demonstrations.

Art Resources/Scala to Represent New York’s MoMA

Art Resource, a photograph archive based in New York City, in collaboration with the Scala Group of Florence, Italy, has been named the exclusive agent for the North American photography rights of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Art Resource already represents the Tate Modern, Musée d’Orsay, Centre Pompidou, Musée Picasso, Musée Fernand Leger, Musée Matisse and the Alexander Calder Foundation. High-resolution digital images from these sources, as well as the MoMA collection, are available for searching, licensing and downloading from www.artres.com.

Art Resource was founded in 1968 to provide a central source of images of painting, sculpture and the fine arts. The Scala Picture Library, founded in 1953, contains approximately 80,000 works of painting and sculpture from museums such as the Uffizi, the Borghese Gallery, the Vatican Museums and the Hermitage.

ASMP Elects President, Directors

Stanley Rowin was recently elected president of the American Society of Media Photographers. During his term, Rowin has said that he will focus on keeping the trade association relevant in a time when photographers are forced to give up more of their rights and struggle to compete with each other for fewer quality assignments.

Rowin, who is based in Lincoln, Mass., was first elected to the national board in 2000 and became treasurer in 2001, serving in that office for a year. He was elected president for 2002-2003, on a 9-5 vote over incumbent Dave Harp. Harp had served one term as president and will remain on the board as a director.

Also contested was the office of second vice president. The position was won by Susan Carr of Kalamazoo, Mich., also on a 9-5 vote, from incumbent Scott Highton of San Carlos, Calif., who will continue to serve as a director. The other offices were uncontested, with Robert Wiley of Orlando, Fla., remaining as first vice president. Ken Hawkins of Atlanta was elected secretary, and Clem Spalding of San Antonio, Texas, was elected treasurer. Both will be serving their first terms as national officers.

Robert Frank Awarded Edward MacDowell Medal

The MacDowell Colony, the nation’s oldest artists’ colony, has presented its Edward MacDowell Medal this year to photographer Robert Frank. The medal is awarded annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the arts.

Frank is the 43rd recipient of the MacDowell Medal and the third photographer to be recognized since the medal was first given in 1960. Past recipients include Aaron Copland, I.M. Pei, Eudora Welty and Jasper Johns.

Frank, who is Swiss by birth, is considered one of the key visual artists to document postwar America. His photography has been described as revealing profound tensions between the various strata of American society — rich and poor, black and white, North and South — in order to define the American experience.

Corbis Moving to Downtown Seattle

Corbis, a provider of digital images and other media, will relocate its headquarters from Bellevue, Wash., to a historic building in downtown Seattle in the coming months. The company’s new home will be the renovated Dexter Horton Building, a terra cotta structure at 710 Second Ave., built in 1924.

The building, named after a Seattle founder and the city’s first banker, has undergone extensive modernization over the past two years, including the installation of state-of-the-art building systems and infrastructure, and a substantial seismic upgrade. The building renovations will provide support for Corbis’ data center and imaging lab. In addition, the downtown location will put the company in proximity to many customers, employees and photographers, and will provide staff members with a variety of transportation alternatives.

Corbis will occupy space on the lower level through the fourth floor. The new office will be 70,000 square feet, nearly 10,000 square feet larger than the company’s previous location. The increased footage will unburden constraints in the data center and imaging lab, offer needed conference and training rooms, and provide flexibility to accommodate an increasing workforce.

Official Software Tracks Internet Copyright Filings

Official Software, an online copyright filing, tracking and management company, is making its automated copyright process available to photographers at Photography.com, a Ritz Interactive web site. In addition to simplifying and streamlining the U.S. Copyright Office filing process, Official provides organizational tools to track and manage works after they are filed.

Typically, all a photographer has to do is complete the online form and upload the files. Forms printed or submitted for online filing appear in the filer’s official copyright account, where they can be edited and stored, and the status of a work or collection of works can be monitored.

Photography.com affiliate partners will also have access to Official’s products and online filing services through the Photography.com web site.

Ex-Gamma Editor Launches New P.J. Agency

J.P. Pappis, a 22-year industry veteran, has launched Polaris Images, a new photojournalism-emphasis agency based in New York City. Pappis is the former executive editor of Sygma Photo News and Corbis Sygma, and also served as editor-in-chief of Gamma Press USA.

Polaris will represent photographers to magazines, newspapers and television, cover major news events, produce feature stories, market special celebrity shoots and seek corporate assignments. The agency’s stable of photographers includes Misha Erwitt, Timothy Fadek, J. Patrick Forden, Paulo Fridman, Wade Goddard, Evelyn Hockstein, John Hryniuk, Stuart Isett, Robert King, Yannis Kontos, Ziv Koren, Gerardo Somoza, Shannon Stapleton, Robert Stolarik, and Allan Tannenbaum.

The new agency has invested in advanced Internet technology to receive and deliver Polaris’s photographic production worldwide. Polaris already delivers light boxes and FTP drops of images selected from the archive with its search engine, photoSpark. The public site, PolarisImages.com, will carry the portfolios of its photographers. The next version will exhibit their production and offer archive presentation and search capabilities.

SFMoMA Announces Arbus Retrospective

The San Francisco Museum of Art has planned a retrospective exhibit of the work of photographer Diane Arbus, the first such show in 30 years.

Following her death in 1971, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized the only major museum exhibition of Arbus’ work to have been held. Famous for her insights into everyday life, Arbus photographed most of her subjects in her hometown, New York City.

Organized by guest curator Elizabeth Sussman and Sandra S. Phillips, SFMoMA senior curator of photography, the exhibition will include some of the artist’s most significant works. The prints will be drawn from major public and private collections throughout the world, and will include many images that have never been exhibited before.

“Diane Arbus: Revelations” will run at SFMoMA from Oct. 18, 2003, through Feb. 15, 2004, and will travel internationally afterward.

Digital Camera Use Rises Among Female Consumers

Digital cameras are no longer used primarily by technologically savvy, gadget-minded men, according to a recent report by the Photo Marketing Association.

Women are becoming much more active in the use of digital cameras and are bringing their traditional photo needs with them, the study found. Typically the keepers of their families’ albums, women print a greater share of the digital images they save and are more likely to indicate that it is important to make prints.

“Marketing to Mom: Profile of the New Digital Camera Uses” examined these trends in digital camera purchases and usage habits. The report compared the differences and similarities in digital camera usage by gender and by the presence of children in the households, with particular regard to printing habits. Information on recent sales trends is also included. The entire report is available at www.pmai.org.

JCS Takes Over Digicolor’s Operations

JCS Enterprises has entered the market as a provider of display and graphic services by signing a long-term lease agreement for the space previously occupied by Digicolor, at 1200 Stewart St. in Seattle.

The company has purchased digital output equipment and computers from Xerox, Epson, RasterGraphics, Ilford and Digicolor’s secured creditor, DPE. JCS will fulfill current commitments to Digicolor customers, complete any work in progress and ensure the integrity of customers’ materials and files.

John Scholl will serve as owner/operator of JCS. Many former Digicolor employees will be retained, including Leasa Martin, who will head up account management and sales development. For more information, contact JCS at 206-622-6567.