Photographer and climber George Brybycin has spent half a life travelling the world with a camera.
For half a century, Brybycin has travelled to over 40 countries, now published over 50 books and is sharing his latest entitled simply, The Legendary Rockies.
The 180-page book offers its readers 173 full-colour photographs taken over Brybycin’s career. From Aberdeen to Whyte Mountain, he shares its peaks and ranges, but also shows other eloquent beauty found in the faces of fellow climbers, water sources and ever changing skies to give a real multilayered view of why the area and destination is a hot spot for photographers as much as hikers and climbers.
Brybycin prides himself on specializing in landscape photography, usually being captured on a high altitude climb, but is also fascinated by capturing closeups of flora and fauna.
He explains to the reader it takes a certain love and dedication and to get a unique photo and experience, you must do unique things. On the other hand, of the 500 mountains he has climbed, Brybycin believes only about five per cent brought him desirable results for his 55 books.
“The great outdoors builds character, will, and stamina and produces healthy, productive people,” Brybycin explains to his readers in his opening essay, The Cold Tales of the Heights, which explains to the reader why he loves what he does, and hopes to push people into a healthy mountaineering lifestyle, especially among youth. He also shares in his opening essay the choices and decisions made when he would be initially deciding on a route or destination to photograph.
“A few ice-clad mountains fascinated me for a long time. One of them was Mt. Ball in Kootenay Park,” Brybycin said. “To explore it, I went along Haffner Creek to the timberline, through some very messy moraines where I entered the icy west slope and advanced upward quite quickly.
“I continued cutting steps until it was totally dark and soon I found a small flat spot to put my bivy. I slept very well until the rain woke me up at daybreak. A totally grey sky persuaded me to head back home. In rising, I examined the spot on which my bivy sat and realized I was on a snow bridge over a crevasse.”
The passage Brybycin shares is a telling tale of the risks one will run into when starting out in a career of climbing photography. The author and photographer also prides himself and explains one must go for at least a 20- to 30-kilometre trek to capture sublime and breathtaking images.
Brybycin also shares, along with his photography, a poignant and touching afterword entitled, Thoughts on the Environment.
“At the present time it is not easy to write about the environmental issue. Unless the sky is about to fall no one is prepared to listen, care or take the matter seriously,” Brybycin writes. “As a society, people simply want to grow and expand. More is considered better … The ‘more’ also means more pollution, more waste, degradation of the environment.”
Brybycin’s writings are a telling tale of the respect and admiration he has for the Canadian Rockies and almost captures the same amount of beauty for the land with his words as he does with his photography.
“There are so many problems in the environment and later on I might publish a memoir where I can really say how I feel,” Brybycin joked. “I don’t do it for money. I am now retired and I just play with my hobby – it’s a passion, and that’s what I did from day one and I will continue on. As long as I can walk I will do it.”
The Legendary Rockies is currently available in all Chapters and Indigo Bookstores for $30.
