Sally Collins

The sky was still dark when we left our lodgings in northeast England. Luke carefully drove the narrow hedge-lined roads. I closed my eyes for a few more precious moments of sleep. “Why am I doing this?” I wondered, I’ve wondered many times when I partook in Luke’s photo expeditions – during a bitterly cold winter sunrise in Utah, on a treacherous hike a razor’s edge from a raging river in Iceland, while climbing to a mountain lake at dusk in Colorado.

Finally we arrive to our destination. It’s still dark, dewy, and cold. Luke’s in a hurry – a glint of light is visible on the ocean horizon. I try to keep up, sidestepping big black snails slithering across the path. I clamber along the shore of huge gray pebbles while Luke sets up his tripod. Waves crash. Salty wind blows in my hair. Oranges and pinks and purples soon begin to flood the sky. Castle ruins appear in the distance. We’re all alone on this foreign shore, just us, the snails, the click of the camera, and this beautiful scene I never would have witnessed without my photographer husband. Worth it.