Banff Mountain Book Festival Winners 2016

The Phyllis and Don Munday Award - Grand Prize in the 2016 Banff Mountain Book Competition has been awarded to Ice Diaries: An Antarctica Memoir, the story of author Jean McNeil's year spent on the continent of Antarctica.

The book, from publishers ECW Press, was chosen out of 147 mountain and adventure literature submissions from authors hailing from nine countries.

Written a decade ago while McNeil was the writer-in-residence with the British Antarctica Survey, Ice Diaries is part travelogue mixed with popular science and memoir.

“This thought-provoking, timely and unusual book blends adventure travel writing and creative non-fiction in a book that's thoughtful and genuine,” stated Banff Mountain Book Competition jury member Harry Vandervlist in a press release. “It’s philosophical out of necessity, because the realities of life, death and the staggering natural world of Antarctica force you to confront big questions. Putting those thoughts into memorable prose that invites re-reading is another matter, and Jean McNeil succeeds brilliantly.”

Ice Diaries was also the winner in the competition's Adventure Travel category.

The winners in the other categories are below:

Mountain Image

Yosemite in the Fifties, Dean Fidelman, Patagonia Books

Mountain Fiction and Poetry

Martin Marten: A Novel, Brian Doyle, Thomas Dunne Vooks & St. Martin's Press

Guidebook

Searching for Superman, Jeff Long, Ascent

Mountaineering History

Rock Queen, Catherine Destivelle, Hayloft Publishing Ltd.

Special Jury Mentions

Across the Arctic Ocean: Original Photographs from the Last Great Polar Journey, Sir Wally Herbert and Huy Lewis-Jones, Thames & Hudson

The Bold and Cold: A History of 25 Classic Climbs in the Canadian Rockies, Brandon Pullan, Rocky Mountain Books Ltd.

For further information please do visit  https://www.banffcentre.ca/banff-mountain-book-competition

Nepal Himalaya - A Journey Through Time | Book Launch Kathmandu

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that my  new book Nepal Himalaya - A Journey Through Time with Text by Lisa Choegyal, Drawings by Paula Sengupta and a Foreword by Reinhold Messner will be launched in Kathmandu on Sunday September 18th 2016 at the  historic Dwarikas Hotel at 4 pm.
I would be delighted if some of you who are in Kathmandu could attend the launch. Lisa, Paula and I would be present. I would be making a short 20 minute presentation on the book.

Some of the recommendations of our book  are below:

‘Sympathetically capturing the majestic scenery and evolving lifestyles of Nepal's mountain landscape, I applaud Sujoy Das’ extraordinary images in this glorious celebration of its resilient inhabitants. Lisa Choegyal’s text and captions add context and a personal perspective of how tourism has contributed to the country that is so much part of my life.’

Sir Chris Bonington CVO CBE DL, British mountaineer, writer and philanthropist

‘I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves the mountains of Nepal. Sujoy Das' arresting black and white images capture the essence of my country and its people. Moreover Lisa Choegyal, who has long been involved with conservation and tourism development in Nepal, vibrantly describes how the country that we hold so dear first opened its door to visitors.’

Dr Hemanta R Mishra, Nepali ecologist, wildlife biologist and conservation leader

‘This captivating book by Sujoy Das and Lisa Choegyal brought back memories of my fifty five years savouring the beautiful mountains and people of Nepal.’ 

Captain M.S. Kohli, Indian mountaineer and author

Some of the photographs from the book are below: 

Ama Dablam from Pangboche at dusk

The large mani wall above Namche Bazaar

The stupa at Bodhnath 

A monastery courtyard in Kagbeni

Mingma Chopel Gurung, a resident of Nar village

Annapurna II and Gangapurna from Ngawal on the Annapurna Circuit

The details of the book is given below:

NEPAL HIMALAYA 

A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

Photographs by Sujoy Das Text by Lisa Choegyal

Foreword by Reinhold Messner

Published by VAJRA BOOKS, Kathmandu, Nepal.

ISBN NO 978-9937-623-57-5

www.vajrabooks.com.np

Available at 

On Amazon India

 http://www.amazon.in/dp/993762357X  

On Amazon USA

https://amzn.com/993762357X

Galen Rowell

Galen  Rowell needs no introduction to the photography community, This great photographer would have been 76 years today.   A cruel twist of fate took him away on August 11, 2002 in a plane crash.
 Though Rowell was primarily a landscape photographer, he was not averse to other forms of photography as well. He spent long hours waiting for the right light for his photos. Living in California, the nationals parks like Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon were his back yard  including Owens Valley in the Sierra Nevada and  it is here that he did some of his most splendid work.

A Rowell photo has a distinctive stamp on it and if you are familiar with his work you would probably recognize the photographs. Some of Rowell's quotes are below:

 "If your artificially lit shadows are as bright as your naturally lit highlights, the resulting image will always appear overlit."

"Is is hard to believe the sense of liberation that comes from debunking the notion that serious photography requires a seriously large tripod."

"I chose 35mm as my sole means of photographic expression because I wanted to be relatively unencumbered. I tried larger cameras , but the bottom line is that my imagination more directly connects with the final image in 35mm."

"I can't wait to go out in the field and search for examples of chaos in clouds, trees and turbulent waters to juxtapose against the more predictable and immutable patterns of nature."

"We usually pass over a photograph devoid of emotional reaction to its subject and say ' This doesn't do anything  for me. ' Of course it doesn't! The photographer didn't have his or her heart in it."

“Photography was a means of visual expression to communicate what I had seen to people who weren’t there. At first I was disturbed that 99 percent of my images didn’t look as good as what I had seen. The other one percent, however, contained some element–a beam of light, a texture, a reflection–that looked more powerful on film than to my eye. Without this I never would have been drawn toward photography as a career. I became fascinated with trying to consistently combine photographic vision and a visualization in my mind’s eye to make images that exceeded the normal perception before my eyes." Galen Rowell

Resources

www.mountainlight.com

http://vault.sierraclub.org/books/photos/rowell/

https://www.naturescapes.net/articles/opinions/working-with-a-legend-galen-rowell/

http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/on-location/featured-stories/lessons-learned-from-galen-rowell/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biHDgrjmQoc