Scenes from Yanayacu, a conversation biology station nestled in the cloud forest in the foothills of the Andes, and Huino, a Quechua village along the river Napo, in Ecuador. There was no electricity at Yanayacu. At night, we walked to and from the bunkhouse by candlelight and at first, this little walk seemed to take longer than it should. I tripped over uneven stones and worried that the breeze I was creating when I walked would blow out the flame. I could only see around the small radius of the light- my hand holding the candle and the bugs swirling erratically around the fire. Then one night, my friend Erin, a biologist, said, "Bend the light down". I watched her cup her hand around the flame. I mimicked her and all of a sudden, the space around me lit up like magic. The reflected light revealed the haphazardly placed rocks on the path. I began to think of this notion of bending the light as a metaphor for this journey, exploring this biological world but also looking through my lens in new lights.