We all search for breakthrough moments as we try to push past plateaus and find our eyes. After years of working in conservation photography, it wasn’t until I sent myself on assignment to an abandoned military base in Alaska that I felt like I’d finally learned how to see.

Middleton, Alaska, is an island so small, the dot on the map would cover it up. But this flat, exposed piece of sand and flowers is the site of a crumbling Cold War-era Air Force base, home to thousands of seabirds, and the summer station for the small research team that studies them. In a landscape described as a post-apocalyptic video game without the zombies, these scientists are discovering that seabirds hold the keys to understanding how climate change is affecting marine ecosystems. What they are learning could have ripple effects that reach far beyond the North Pacific.

Arriving on the island amid a personal crisis, these birds and the camaraderie of this young research team showed me what kind of photographer I could become, and changed the trajectory of my life. This talk shares how I came to be among them, the gifts the island offered, and what happens when you finally get out of your own way.