Picture of boy in school uniform running over railroad tracks.

Grief drove a photographer to India. That’s where she found joy.

‘I climbed mountains, swam in the sea, and unraveled entirely,’ writes Sara Hylton. Then, she began to see life with color, light, and magic.

Photographer Sara Hylton was in India at a Darjeeling Himalayan Railway station when “out of nowhere, a figure ran toward me.” She grabbed her camera and captured this photo, which she prizes as an example of “serendipity in my own life.”

Sometimes I’d get the rare assignment where I could breathe—for example, photographing an article on teas for an airline magazine. I was in the Darjeeling area of north India, at the foothills of the Himalaya, a region known for producing the “Champagne of teas.” I took the job hoping to make playful, almost cinematic images, but at the end of the day, I found I’d made nothing of the sort. Packing up my camera, I felt like a failure.

On the drive back to the hotel, I noticed heavy steam rising from a building up ahead. Arriving at the scene, I opened the car door—and realized I was at the Ghum station for the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway,

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