Art and science seem mutually exclusive.
Art perceives the world through emotions, the psyche, and the aesthetic. Science grasps the world through impersonal observation and measurement; rational and quantitative.
We are dedicated to bringing these two faces of human comprehension together, merging art and science to induce a compelling synergy of perception and understanding.
Our photographic intent is to produce fine art environmental photographs. We are capturing nature, the ice, the mountains, to catalyze visitors to act, to become engaged in the regeneration of the planet. The photographs are both a celebration of the fragile beauty that is being lost and a clarion call to meaningful action.
Using Phase One, the world’s best image-capture system, we create very large, highly detailed images that immerse the viewer as if they were actually in the mountains.
“We are giving this glorious landscape a voice – the ice and its guardian mountains stand mute; they cannot speak for themselves.”
— Guardians of the Ice
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Jim Elzinga
Jim has been an active alpinist for over 40 years. He has led multiple expeditions in North America, the Himalaya and the Andes. In 1986, he led the most successful Canadian expedition to Everest (Everest Light). He received a rare Award of Recognition from the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation recognizing his leadership of this historic expedition.
“No matter how far I have travelled, I have year after year been drawn back to one place: the Columbia Icefield. It is a touchstone in my life; a place in the world and in my heart to which I have been returning for 50 years! It is only now- after a lifetime in the mountains - that I have come to more fully realize the extent to which my experiences in this remarkable place have inspired not just direction, but purpose in my life. I encounter the mountain as both my mentor and my photographic subject.”
Jim’s interest in photography led him, in the early 80s to enroll in the four-year Photo Arts program at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). As a documentary photographer, Jim was one of the first western photographers into China to document the lives of ordinary people. In the Icefield, each engagement is an effort to make the invisible visible: “I work to photograph mountain landscapes in an authentic intimate way so viewers are catalyzed to act, moving in their own way toward fuller engagement with the natural world.“
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Roger Vernon
For five decades, Roger has applied his skills throughout the genres of motion picture photography. Fictional films, documentaries, educational films and TV commercials are all part of his visual language. He is the recipient of multiple awards in these fields. Two of the feature films in his resumé received Academy Awards.
“As I reflect on 50 years working behind the lens I continue to wrestle with translating the profound impact mountains and glaciers have had on my view of the natural world and my place in it. With this project, we are exploring a domain typically reserved for a highly select group of individuals, usually pilots or rescue personnel in service of earth-bound adventurers. This unique perspective, largely undocumented, truly illuminates the current state of glacier reduction and changes to the mountain landscape.”
While he has traveled and worked in many remote corners of the earth including Tibet, Mongolia, Kashmir, Bhutan, the Karakoram to name a few, Roger says that nowhere inspires him quite like the Canadian Rockies, which is why he continues to return to his mountain home in the Bow Valley.