Until recently astrophotography was a word I don’t remember hearing or reading and if I had it vanished into the vast depths of unconsciousness like a shooting star. Too bad for me. There is in astrophotography astonishing beauty and subtle and sheer reminders of the connections between all things in the universe. When I read and viewed “Sierra Starlight,” the fine book of astrophotography by Tony Rowell I was treated to some of the best of that beauty as well as moving reminders of those connections, in this case some of them personal.
Tony’s father, Galen Rowell, one of the world’s finest mountain/outdoor/adventure photographers, was a close friend and I knew and liked Tony as a bright, energetic boy and young man but never maintained an adult connection. After Galen was killed in a plane crash in 2002 Tony and I had no contact. I heard he was pursuing photography but didn’t follow his career. When I learned Tony had published a book with such an intriguing title for one like me who has spent much of his life in the Sierra (some of it with Galen) I decided to catch up on Tony’s calling. I ordered his book.
It blew my mind.
Astrophotography, according to Wikipedia, “…is a large sub-discipline in amateur astronomy where it is usually used to record aesthetically pleasing images, rather than for scientific research, with a whole range of equipment and techniques dedicated to the activity.” The whole range of equipment and techniques is as complex and demanding as the images they produce are intriguing and nourishing, and the discipline is not for the impatient, inattentive, unadventurous or fragile. Almost every image of astrophotography is taken with a long exposure which accumulates the small amount of light photons that reach the earth from distant stars. Urban areas as well as some not so urban ones produce light pollution (thus the Dark Sky Ordinances of the towns of the Wood River Valley where I live) which makes seeing or photographing the night time sky a sullied experience.
The Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and Nevada (also known as Sierra Nevadas and Sierra) is a pristine environment for Tony Rowell’s work. He has written, “I joke with my friends that I’m putting in 9-5 days but my hours are 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.” I have spent countless days and nights in those mountains, including many hours of inspiring, nourishing, healing contemplation of its nighttime stars, but “Sierra Starlight” showed me a completely new dimension and perspective of some of my favorite places, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Mammoth Mountain and Mono Lake, among others.
The foreword is written by Kenneth Brower and includes, “Malcolm Margolin, our publisher, is smitten by Tony’s astrophotography, seeing it as a new way of looking at the Sierra. So it is, and yet at the same time it is very old. If there is nothing new under the sun, then there is also nothing new under the stars.” I, too, am smitten, and if there is nothing new under the stars we are all still learning (we hope) and in addition to Rowell’s images I learned two new words, astrophotography and moonbow.
Check them out.