As our state track meet announcer always says in a booming voice about returning champions, this photo was shot “from one year ago” today on my last real trip. Or, rather, a year ago from yesterday? Or the in-between? What comes a year after February 29th? Either way, we were all really fortunate that this trip even happened, as about a week after returning, the world as we knew it started turning upside down.

This was a location I wanted to photograph at sunrise, but the conditions didn’t look right on this day. Instead, I was wandering around the city below in the dawn haze. As I saw the clouds begin to break, I started running through the streets and up the winding stairs to this overlook, surprising early morning joggers by sprinting past them in flip-flops and khaki shorts, carrying a heavy bag of camera gear. Needless to say, I was a sweaty mess at the top, but it was worth it.

The volcano never did peek out this morning, but I’m still pleased you can get a sense of the scale of the massive shape hulking over the city below. February 2020.