The beauty of the Baekdu Daegan has now been vividly captured, this time photographically. A hiker from New Zealand, Roger Shepherd, has published a collection of photographs that capture the depth and beauty of the mountains in a series of 108 photos, taken both day and night and colored by the changes of the seasons. In Shepherd s collection, titled Baekdu Daegan Korea, Mountains of North and South Korea, his photographs show the stunning mountainscape as seen through the viewfinder of his camera, taken from 2007 to 2013. The photographer intended through his photos to not only share the striking landscape of the mountains but also to bring together the two divided Koreas. The collection starts with a photo of a bird s-eye view of the Ryanggang-do region around Baekdusan and ends with a sunrise over Cheonwang-bong, one of many Jirisan peaks. As the photographer says, these 108 photos allow the viewer to feel like he is trekking from the starting point of the Baekdu Daegan all the way through to its end. It seems obvious that Shepherd s photographic expedition must have been an arduous task. George Richard Fleming, a photographer and professor at Sacramento City College, once said about Ansel Adams, one of the best-known American landscape photographers, that, Adams photos are the ones that captured the best moments of the place. That was possible because he lived there for a long time. So his pictures are not the ones that anybody could emulate. As the professor said, Shepherd, too, stayed in the Baekdu Daegan as long as he could to get the best shots. He even resigned himself to sleeping out in the open to find the best places and best moments. Everyone can see that effort in his photos, where he presses the shutter button at the exact, perfect moment, such as during the sunrise, sunset and throughout the changes of the seasons across the mountain ranges. Shepherd tried also to include in his book the Korean spirit enshrined in the mountains, plants and trees that have long taken root there, watching over Koreans lives throughout the years. Most notably, with this book, the photographer wanted to show that the peninsula, though now politically divided, is still linked together by the Baekdu Daegan. That s why he took so many photos that focus on its ridges, stretching from the north all the way through to the south. --By Jeon Han, Sohn JiAe Korea.net Staff Writers