Cath Simard (Canadian, b. 1989) is a photographer and digital artist known for surreal composite landscapes that combine cold blue tones with remote mountain settings.,Self-taught and based in Canmore, Alberta, she builds each image from elements gathered on solo, multi-day treks through the backcountry.,She releases only five to seven new images a year, each produced from expeditions that can stretch across hundreds of kilometers of trekking.
Scouted as a model at fifteen, Simard spent a decade modeling and four years working as an art director and fashion stylist before leaving the industry in 2014 to move to Australia, where she worked on a banana farm.,She documented her travels there on an iPhone, and after a bandana company hired her for product photos she bought her first camera, a Sony a6000.A three-month solo trip through Indonesia, Hawaii and western Canada introduced her to the Canadian Rockies, and in 2016 she moved back to Canada, completing her transformation from fashion model into a self-described “mountaineering dirtbag” who lived on the road out of her car for months.,
To create a single image she has walked as much as 250 kilometers, trekked for 18 days, and shot at elevations up to 5,900 meters, often returning empty-handed if the conditions or location do not match what she pictured.She scouts and conceives each piece in advance, then sets the photographs aside for months or years before editing them with fresh eyes, sometimes combining elements shot at different times or in different locations into a single composite.,
In October 2017 she photographed a remote Hawaiian road that went viral and was widely reused online without credit.In 2021 she released the image under an open license so anyone could use it freely, then minted it on SuperRare as #FreeHawaiiPhoto, where it sold for 100 ETH ($301,894).,Her genesis NFT piece Le Départ sold for 30 ETH ($68,554) and included a personalized five-day trip through the Canadian Rockies with a canoe journey to Spirit Island.She later auctioned her composite Continuum at Sotheby's in 2022 and released Metascapes, an AI-generated landscape collection made with Ryan Newburn and Yuri Beletsky.,
