Photo Credit: Sharon Krushel

By Shane Clausing

Local Photography

Peace River woman launching new book to showcase beauty of Peace Region

Jul 13, 2021 | 2:45 PM

A Peace River woman is creating a new book to showcase the beauty of the Peace Region and promote local photographers.

Sharon Krushel’s book titled ‘Mother Earth – Boreal Beauty of the Peace Country’ features images of the wildlife and landscape of the entire Peace River watershed.

Krushel says she got the idea for the book back in 2019.

“The Peace River Art Club was trying to think of a theme for our next exhibit at the Peace River Library Gallery and one of our members suggested the theme ‘Mother Earth,’” explained Krushel.

“I had so many photos I wanted to show because I’ve been hiking in the Peace River hills for 30 years and that’s pretty much my theme. So, I decided to create a one-off vista print book of my favorite nature photos as an exhibit piece. At the opening reception, almost everyone said, ‘I want one of these!’”

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Because of the cost to create a print book, Krushel was unable to make any more for the public, but she thought of expanding the book to make it bigger, better, and something worth getting published.

“There are so many species I would love to include, so I started collaborating with other photographers,” said Krushel.

Krushel eventually was able to recruit 25 photographers to showcase their work inside her book.

She says she found recruiting local photographers to participate in this project wasn’t difficult, as many of them have been waiting for somewhere to showcase their work.

“One of the things is that during the pandemic, we haven’t been able to have any photography exhibits or anything like that to show our images. It’s been (pretty) limited to what you can put on Facebook and Instagram,” said Krushel.

“People are quite excited to have their work featured in a book like this that will be a keepsake for many years to come. I’d say 98 per cent of the photos were taken in the Peace Region.”

Krushel added she was able to recruit so many photographers because of relationships she had built up with many of them over the last decade. For the last decade, Krushel teamed up with local photographers to help her run her custom card-making business.

Krushel encourages people to watch the music video for the book, and take a sneak peek of the book.

All of the profits from the book go towards the photographers.

Krushel is also hopeful she’ll be able to sell it in stores and galleries. The Centre for Creative Arts in Grande Prairie has already said they want to carry the book. The Centre will also be the pick up location in November for people who pre-purchase the book online.