Stephanie and Ami’s first trip together was in 1976. They visited Stephanie’s family in England and then, they hired a car and headed all the way to Edinburgh in Scotland. After that, they travelled around England and the British Isles. Their desire to travel the world gradually grew, as did Stephanie’s photography hobby.

Over the years their daring and experience grew and they began to travel to more distant and exotic destinations such as North America at first and later South Africa, Australia and other countries.

Where possible they travelled independently in rental cars and in other countries, they hired a car/SUV with a private guide and driver. This fact enabled them to be directly in contact with the natives in various countries

The process of deciding the trip destination was as follows: usually, Ami came up with a suggestion for the destination and after some research, the destination was mutually agreed on. For many years, Stephanie was the main photographer and also decided on special sites/events there (including hotels) and Ami planned the trip in detail and was also the driver (when conditions were suitable for self-driving).

One of Stephanie’s special qualities was that on every trip she took a lot of photos (even before the digital age) Thus when you look at the albums, each album has a detailed story of the trip. Later, with the arrival of digital cameras, and cell phones, she took thousands of photos. most of which were very interesting and of high quality.

She also took many photos on various trips in Israel. Stephanie liked also to wander around Tel Aviv with a friend and they took many street scenes and pictures of interesting people.

She used to say that photography is like painting in terms of composition. She had a natural sense to  Identify special sights and capture situations of objects in motion that disappeared within seconds but remained in her camera. In addition, she could also scan the environment and identify situations/people/animals that most people would miss. She knew how to photograph inanimate objects such as rocks, trees and plants while combining them and the resulting image was a kind of wonderful painting of nature.

Stephanie loved and appreciated beauty and/or something special and unusual: a landscape, a special person, or a historic building and then found the optimal shooting angle. Since she loved to document anything interesting even if it was difficult to watch, she did not shy away from shooting it. It could be burning bodies in India, mummies in open graves in Peru, Munk skulls in churches and cathedrals, life in abject poverty in villages in India, Cambodia, South Africa and more.

In addition, she had sympathy and respect for the Indigenous natives and a strong desire to understand their customs and religions. Therefore, she was always interested in visiting remote places and villages and talking with the residents (usually with the accompanying guide), visiting their homes, when possible, their temples and praying houses and drinking

or eating food that was sometimes “unusual”.

Stephanie also possessed another quality: courage and rare composure. Despite certain physical limitations (such as seasickness and sensitivity to noise and pollution), when the need arose, she focused, and an internal peace helped her overcome such situations and she managed to overcome the natural fear of travelling to “challenging” places.

There were several times on some trips that there were consecutive unusual physical activities within a short time that caused Stephanie not to feel well but after a short period, she recovered and joined the sunsequent activity )In Hawaii – sailing in a Zodiac boat in a stormy sea to watch a boiling lava flow into the Pacific Ocean, and the next day a helicopter flight, In Vancouver Island, Canada – A flight in a seaplane and then boarding a small boat for whale watching).

Some of the other activities in which Stephanie and Ami participated were: A helicopter flight that landed on a floating platform in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, A Helicopter Landing on a glacier in New Zealand, Flying in a Helicopter over the Iguazu Falls in Brazil, flying in tiny planes (4-8 passengers) that landed on grassy strips with no control tower, and getting stuck in a sandbar in a boat in a river infested with crocodiles – in Papua New Guinea, visiting in the largest holy festival in the world: The “Kumbh mela” in India in 2019, where about 240 million people altogether gathered for 45 days, and there were more.

Stephanie loved buying ethnic artefacts (sculptures, tribal masks, pottery vessels, wooden hand-crafted items etc.) from tribes and Indigenous people everywhere she visited (Papua New Guinea, Amazonian Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Easter Island, Aborigines in Australia, Masai in Zanzibar, Zulu in South Africa, Native Americans in the USA, Cambodia, India, China and many others(. Stephanie and Ami’s apartment resembles a museum…

Elephants were Stephanie’s favourite animal. She used to collect miniature elephants from anywhere in the world in all sizes, colours, and materials possible. The collection at home has over 80 of them.

We had many more plans to visit other countries around the world but Stephanie’s illness has unfortunately stopped them.