A Reminder and a Review
SEP 27, 2024
It’s been a really freaking wild year.
Well really, it’s been a wild summer dealing with unexpected and life-changing medical news and the emotional whiplash of it all. This whole summer, and especially this past month, I’ve felt so utterly and completely lost - lost in the loneliness of navigating and processing this change and lost in the loss and grief of things that were so dear to me and core to my identity.
At the beginning of the summer, before all this change happened, my mom gave me a ripped page out of a magazine. It was a full page advert for a travel photography contest, with submissions due on October 4th, but I put it aside for “later”.
Fast forward to now: it’s the end of the September. I’m back in the US after spending the summer in France trying to run away from the grief and loss and anger. I take the ripped page out of the pile of other haphazardly stacked “to-do” items - with the deadline fast approaching it’s time to start figuring out what I want to submit for the contest.
As I scroll through photos from the past year and a half, I’m filled with awe and amazement and wonder: This is me? I went to these places and saw these things? With everything that’s been going on, it’s been too easy to forget that I’ve just had the most extraordinary experience traveling and hiking the world, witnessed astonishing forces of nature, and forged friendships with incredible humans. It’s been to easy to forget that at my core, I’m someone who deeply values embracing life and living fully.
These photos remind me of who “May” is. I hope you feel the same sense of joy, awe, and wonder and that it inspires you to go live. Take in the magnificence of it all.
A stunning sunrise seen from atop of Signal Hill looking over Cape Town and its surrounding mountains
Autumn colors on That Wanaka Tree provide a beautiful contrast against the backdrop of New Zealand's Southern Alps
The sunrise reflects a stunning spectrum of oranges off of Dune 45 and the surrounding sand dunes of the Namib Desert
Following the footsteps of others to capture the colors of Sossusvlei's sunrise in the Namib Desert
Waiting atop of Dune 45 to welcome the rainbow sunrise
Driving on State Highway 80 en route to Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. Arrows provide friendly guidance to out-of-town visitors used to driving on the opposite side of the road.
The sun dramatically cuts across the cloud cover to provide a glorious ray of light, a stunning scene after spending a cold night at Mueller Hut. You can see the flattened tip of Aoraki (Mount Cook) peeking behind the clouds.
Lake Matheson (New Zealand) is a glacial lake famous for its reflective views, clear enough to resemble a mirror. The colors of the mountains change every minute as the sun slowly makes its way up to the sky.
This photo was taken half an hour later. Here the sunrise casts the mountains in shades of purples and blues.
A misty morning in Fiordland National Park taken during the Routeburn Track. The mist and cloud cover shaded everything in beautiful shades of grays.
A glorious sunrise during the Routeburn Track, a three day hike in New Zealand's Fiordland and Mount Aspiring National Parks.
Bhutan's famous Tiger's Nest Monastery, also known as Paro Taktsang in Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan. This is a sacred Vajrayana Himalayan Buddhist monastery.
A misty morning while hiking on the Annapurna Circuit in the Nepalese Himalayas. Temples and shrines are scattered along the trail with colorful Buddhist prayer flags dancing in the wind. You can see the Annapurna mountains in the background, looming majestically over the hills.
An early morning along the Kepler Track in New Zealand. The low cloud cover added a sense of anticipation to the view.
Looking back on the Annapurna Circuit trail to catch a glimpse of the sunrise during the way up to Tilicho Lake, a glacial lake located at 5000m above sea level.
Sunrise at Mount Taranaki in Egmont National Park, New Zealand. This mountain is famous for its reflective views, which only occur when the tairn's (a small mountain lake) waters are still.
Mt Taranaki in the afternoon. It was so peaceful to sit in front of the mountain and watch the clouds roll by.
I love capturing the sharpness of the mountains against the wispiness of the clouds floating in the sky. I believe this is Annapurna I (Nepal), although I'm not quite sure.