Lake Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand / September 2011

I was travelling with some of my classmates from St. George’s high school. We were in New Zealand to attend a pile of games at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Between games we sometimes travelled to other cities. This was on our way from Queenstown to Christ Church and those snow capped mountain tops are the Southern Alps in the central south island.

The terrain was spectacular and on this day, the mountains had just had an overnight dusting. I was really taken by the turquoise colored glacier waters. The lake level seemed low as it was exposing a lot of ash grey boulders. I wanted to get a good foreground of this side of the lake and I missing something to give the photo some reference. Then along came some people below and I quickly positioned myself to frame one of them in the foreground. When this person’s hands went up, as if to express gratitude and joy for such an amazing sight and to nature for being so special, I had my ‘extra’ moment for capture. I believe it improved the perspective and added some human emotion to an otherwise empty nature landscape.

If you go to Photo of the Week # 16 – “Lone Woman at Las Pozas”, you can read how I came to photograph that scene. Originally hoping to have no one in it, I was indeed fortunate that this lone woman, who absolutely made the image come together, appeared for me. Serendipity can happen as a reward for patience and openness.