Stop and Smell the Monkeys

Ok, kidding about smelling monkeys. Kinda. hehheh. This spot is in New Zealand and it’s called Monkey Creek… and we stopped there. Took some photos. Smelled the clean Monkey Creek air.

Of course, I was with photographers. And one thing about photography is that you tend to stop a lot more than you used to on road trips.
Hanging out with photographers is a blast. We love beauty in all things and take great delight in creating and sharing it. We tend to see stuff other people never notice. Like how the light is falling perfectly on that flower over there. What the clouds are up to in any given moment (a photographer may even cry a little if there ARE no clouds), where the sun is right now and exactly when – and where – it’s going to set. We may gasp and get teary-eyed over a beautiful sunset, all the while trying to capture it like we’re starving and it’s the last fish in the ocean. We seek to capture an image that can recreate the feeling we had when we were there, whatever that feeling was. For me, it was a freedom, a fullness and joy, at being in a world so full of color and texture. And I could smell the monkeys (and even a few flowers, depending on where I was standing). Which is to say, I felt astonishingly alive, aware and incredibly present.

We were on our way to Milford Sound.
But we stopped along the way to enjoy, take in, be inspired by and love – the world around us.
Hey, that sort of thing could change everything!