This is the result of photographing Libby and Pete’s wedding on the Big Island of Hawai’i.

This is the result of astronomical return plane ticket prices inviting us to stay a little longer & return a little later.

This is the result of being creatively charged, armed with our film cameras & ready to experiment with light & new techniques.

This is the result of sitting for hours in the beating sun on the coast of Volcanoes National Park to watch the humpback whales come up for air every thirty minutes. Then hiking ten miles to see, for the very first time, lava flowing into the ocean.

This is the result of multiple peanut butter sandwiches, more oranges than we dared to count & brushing our teeth in the middle of a volcanic wasteland.

This is the result of staying up late at night, flashlight in hand, reading the third & fourth Harry Potter books… again. Then stepping out of our tent to find the night sky lit to a burnt orange. We climbed through brush in the dark to follow that light, then found ourselves sitting by a lake of tumultuous lava for another few hours, watching it slosh up & down, up & down. The noise it made sounded like the ocean waves.

This is the result of saying goodbye to a difficult second half of 2016 & hello to new perspective & physical health in 2017. Like the following photo reminds me: there is growth in rocky places.

**It’s been three months since we took this trip & I’m grateful for these photos. To remember one of our favorite places in this world (South Point), to look at the new experiences we were lucky enough to be a part of & to realize how much my heart & mind have been transformed in such a short period of time. If you’re currently in a tough place, just let me assure you: it will get better. Stick it out & it will get better. It will. It always does.**

-Renee

**Here you can see the color of the sky where we set up camp – the combination of lava & smoke in the air made it look like this from dusk to dawn. Underneath it you’ll see the lava lake we snuck out at night to watch.**

**We laughed so hard at the next pair of images – a double exposure gone wrong. It looks like an awful Windows screensaver from the 90’s!**

**Old habits die hard, & after five days of no hot food we resorted to our pre-flight ritual- Panda Express. So bad, but sooo good. Underneath that is the sky at San Fransisco’s airport after the redeye when we didn’t sleep a wink.**