HILLARY 📷🌿✨

I’ve found that sometimes I need to visit the places I fear to really understand what it means to be free. Creating Molten has been that for me; a complex cocktail of fear, anxiety, sadness and love to create something that felt true to me in that moment, then setting it free into the world. And that’s sort of the beauty of art, isn’t it? To create for you then have it be received and interpreted through another’s lens? Isn’t that magic? I am incredibly humbled by and grateful for the many, many people whose lives this film has touched in some small way, and to the audience at @mysticfilmfest for choosing it for best documentary at this year’s festival. I’m completely overwhelmed with the number of conversations I’ve had about grief and loss, love and longing as I’ve shared my own story. Thank you, thank you, thank you 🙏🏼

Look. At the light, the way it’s slanting through the trees just so. How the smoke wraps itself around the beams like fingers. Alive. Do you see how the air trembles, how the golden shoulders of the ferns dance to the drum beat. Heartbeat. How the dust settles then hovers, suspended above the ground? Around us, everything becomes nameless (or rather reclaims its rightful name). Time rewinds and we are joined in time and space by those on the other side. #canonae1film #35mmfilmphoto

Last October, I was asked to make a film about my Nonnie. Here’s what I came up with. Many thanks to @matt_andrew and @meetalexcannata and to every family member who helped create this love letter to Irm. [Full film can be viewed at frameandfocus.media] #linkinbio

Southern Santorini is a completely different island. By 10 am, the narrow streets of Oia are shoulder-to-shoulder tourists, all of us complicit in loving this place to death. By sunset, thousands of us will crowd into the same spots, phones and cameras raised, capturing the same shot that’s been captured millions of times. And look, I get it. I’m here too. I took the photos. It’s stunningly, impossibly beautiful. But at the other end of the island away from the crowds, I enjoy this island alone. The blue domes and white-washed buildings that have become synonymous with “Greece” were quiet. Locals were sweeping their storefronts. Cats were claiming their territories. The light was softer, more honest. And I thought about something a photographer I admire once said: “The most photographed places on Earth are also the most misrepresented.” Because what we don’t see in those millions of identical photos: Santorini is literally sinking under the weight of tourism. Housing costs have skyrocketed, pushing locals out. Water is limited. The volcanic island’s infrastructure strains under 3.4 million annual visitors (for a population of 15,500). The perfect blue and white village we all come to see? It’s become something like a beautiful stage set, increasingly disconnected from authentic Greek life. This is the tension I’m trying to hold as a traveler and photographer: How do I share this beauty without contributing to its destruction? How do I inspire people to care about places without just adding to the crowds? I don’t have perfect answers. But I’m trying to: • Visit shoulder season • Stay longer, consume mindfully • Spotlight the real challenges, not just pretty views • Support local businesses • Take care when tagging places that can’t support over tourism • Be honest about tourism’s impact Maybe the most radical thing I can do is tell you: Santorini is beautiful. It’s also struggling. And you might actually have a deeper experience on one of the dozens of other stunning Greek islands that haven’t been overrun yet. The blue domes will still be here. But the question is: At what cost? And what kind of traveler do we want to be? 📍 Santorini, Greece

I sat by the water for an hour yesterday and did absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing. I watched light change on the Gulf of Corinth. I listened to Greek conversations I couldn’t understand. I ate olives and moussaka. I let my mind wander without reaching for my phone. It felt revolutionary. We talk about mindfulness like it’s another item on the productivity checklist. Meditate for 10 minutes. Practice gratitude. Be present. As if presence is something we can optimize and schedule between meetings. But sitting in this small port town that nobody’s ever heard of, I realized: Mindfulness isn’t something you do. It’s what’s left when you stop doing everything else. Here’s what I’m learning: The antidote to our anxiety-driven, achievement-obsessed culture isn’t another self-improvement routine. It’s permission to simply be. To have moments that don’t become content. To visit places that will never trend. To sit by the water and produce nothing but presence. This is the kind of travel that actually changes you—not the famous sites you check off a list, but the unplanned moments when you finally stop curating your life and start living it. The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m posting this on Instagram. But if this reaches even one person who gives themselves permission to do less, to be more, to sit by some random body of water and just breathe—then maybe the algorithm served some good today. When’s the last time you did nothing? Really nothing? 📍 Greece

A glimpse of a new photo series I’m creating: Human/ Nature I’ve never actually seen most of what I’ve seen. I’ve never seen the Eiffel Tower sparkling above me - but I’ve seen it on Instagram. I’ve never seen the Dead Sea, but I know it exists because I’ve seen it in an issue of National Geographic. I’ve never seen orangutans or dodo birds, tree roots or bleached coral, the inside of a volcano or the inside of a living human. But I’ve seen them all through illustrations, photos, documentaries and books. In this age of advancement, when we have trouble sorting fact from fiction, where everything we could ever want to know is within arms reach, I can’t help but wonder: are we really seeing what we’re seeing?

A little bit of life lately ✨ 1. Freshly picked wild berries from my own backyard. 2. Had a few hours between work things and decided to take our kayaks out on the river. Being your own boss is both incredibly difficult and also insanely cool. 3. My neighbor came home with two HUGE yellowfin tunas and called me over to see them. As he was slicing up medallions and we were chatting about our days, he gifted four of them to me. 4. Words of wisdom. 5. Cool September mornings mean I’m back on the matcha train. 6. Dinosaurs really do exist.

If this is your vibe, I want to be friends. 📷 @danieljosephfish | magical sweater that I get endless compliments on: @madebyminga

Postcards from the South of France 💌

Chocolate mornings, honeyed nights. 🇫🇷

We gathered in a circle as the light faded, sitting cross-legged in the grass. A week of deep diving, of shedding, of remembering who we are beneath all the noise. The peace pipe moved from woman to woman—each voice carrying words of love, affirmation, gratitude. Stories of breakthrough. Whispers of the magic that happens when women create sacred space together. There are moments in life that shift something deep inside you. Moments when the veil between worlds feels impossibly thin. Ecuador, you've changed us. Thank you for holding us. Thank you for the reminder that magic is real when we show up fully to receive it. @creativeescapetrips @madebyminga ✨🌵🇪🇨 #WomensCircle #Ecuador #SacredSpace #SisterCircle #Transformation #Magic #Retreat #SoulJourney #Ceremony #WomenSupportingWomen #creativeescape #madebyminga #creativeescapetrips

Twenty-one years in prison. A man still fighting for his name. What remains when everything else is taken? Behind-the-scenes of a new passion project in the works. #documentaryfilm #socialjusticefilm #experimentalfilm #cinematicatorytelling #shortfilm #prisonreform #wrongfulconviction #behindthescenes #filminthemaking #filmmakerlife #truestory #justicematters #visualpoetry