Paul Bride (Until the Light Dies)

A visceral portrait of one photographer’s obsession with capturing sublime beauty and unsettling chaos at the wild edges of the world.

Photographer Paul Bride began his career capturing climbers on towering cliffs and frozen peaks, where he developed not only a remarkable eye but a sky-high tolerance for risk—and an addiction to its rewards. Over the past twenty-five years, his relentless pursuit of extraordinary images has led him to striking locales and sketchy situations around the world, from reef breaks in Tahiti to armed checkpoints in the tribal regions of Ethiopia, frozen waterfalls in the Rockies to cartel shootouts in Panama.

In his first monograph, Bride tramples genre conventions to share a thrilling selection of more than 200 photos from all these places and more, uniting the kaleidoscopic array with often-harrowing stories of how they were made and reflections on the uncommon power they hold. These are photographic dispatches from the chase—the product of a lifelong obsession with finding indelible moments that seem to exist outside time, and that produce images as difficult to forget as they are to make.

Most of these photos have never been posted or published. Organized into five sections (Climbing, People, Water, Travel, Storms), each of which includes a double-page foldout, they include a mix of dizzying action shots, jaw-dropping landscapes, and stirring portraits. In his foreword, legendary climber Sonnie Trotter speaks to the passion that sustained Bride through his self-proclaimed “dirtbag” days; in his introduction and extended captions, Bride wrestles with the demons and motivations that have shaped his career. Paul Bride: Until the Light Dies is an extraordinary collection that reveals how a passion verging on madness can create images you didn’t know were possible.